A Wish.
Oh, that I were the Spirit of a Plant,
Rear’d in Imagination’s evergreen world,—
To lift my head above the meadow grass,
And strike my roots, far-spread and intervolved,
Deep as the Central Heart, wherefrom to taste
The springs of infinite being ! From that source
What pregnant fermentations would arise ;
What blossom, fruit, perfume, and influence ;
To purify mankind’s destructive blood,—
So full of life and elevating powers—
So cloy’d and clogg’d for exercise of good.