To-day I wish that I were a tree,

And not myself,

Confronting spring with a neat little row of poems

Like cups and saucers on a shelf.

For then I should have poems innumerable,

One kissing the other;

Authentic, perfect in shape and lovely variety,

And all of the same tireless green colour.

No one would think it unnatural

Or question my right;

All day I would wave them above the heads of people,

And sing them to myself all night.

But as I am only a woman

And not a tree,

With piteous human care I have made this poem,

And set it now on the shelf with the rest to be.