quicken

To feel the strong soul, stricken

Through fleshly pulses, quicken

Beneath swift sighs that thicken,

Now not even the spilt blood of those who forbid and betray shall quicken

the dried root or flush the faded leaf of love; the myrtle being past all

Not of men but of birds whose note

bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:

And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness

Dream that the lips once breathless

Might quicken if they would;

Say that the soul is deathless;

Life that had song for its leaven

To quicken the blood that ran

Through the veins of the songless years

Eyes of hours whose paces halt or quicken

Read in bloodred lines of loss and blame,

that are drunken with dew for wine,

And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a

denser and fierier throng,

As ’tis too just a cause,

Let this thought quicken thee:

Minds that are great and free