Classic Poem

He walked straight down the trail, looking back but once:
He did not see the Mother so close behind him,
But he saw the beloved woman in the doorway,
And stumbled on blind with hot tears.

And he thought:
“I leave her with him:
Would first that he would turn into a dragon
That I might slay him, my hard father,
And remain forever with her.”

His stumbling startled partridges:
They drummed wildly up through hemlock twilight
And flashed across a clearing of sun:
He smelt strong pine and good Earth:
He drank the wild mountain-air …
The blood of youth mounted and flushed his body …

Sudden, the most ancient intoxication was his,
Wildly beating against his longing for home,
And restlessly he plunged ahead.

“Would I stay,” he thought, “would I stay?
Or would I go clamorously against the world,
A conqueror from the hills?”

The Image followed him, quickening her steps to his.