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Poems of Nature

by Henry David Thoreau

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Free Love

My love must be as free
  As is the eagle’s wing,
Hovering o’er land and sea
  And everything.

I must not dim my eye
  In thy saloon,
I must not leave my sky
  And nightly moon.

Be not the fowler’s net
  Which stays my flight,
And craftily is set
  T’ allure the sight.

But be the favoring gale
  That bears me on,
And still doth fill my sail
  When thou art gone.

I cannot leave my sky
  For thy caprice,
True love would soar as high
  As heaven is.

The eagle would not brook
  Her mate thus won,
Who trained his eye to look
  Beneath the sun.

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