The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems

by Dora Sigerson Shorter

THE WRECKAGE

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
And I out in the storm,
And lo! the night had taken wings;
I dream me safe and warm.

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
A wreckers’ light for me;
My heart is broken on the rocks;
I perish in the sea.

I AM THE WORLD

I am the song, that rests upon the cloud;
I am the sun:
I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud,
When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree;
The flower uncurled:
I am the melancholy of the sea;
I am the world.

The other souls that, passing in their place,
Each in their groove;
Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace,
Speak and reprove.

“O atom of that law, by which the earth
Is poised and whirled;
Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert
You are the world.”

Am I not one with all the things that be
Warm in the sun?
All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see,
Till all be done.

Of song and shine, of changing leaf apart,
Of bud uncurled:
With all the senses pulsing at my heart,
I am the world.