Could Fate ordain a lot for me
 Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
 A shephard of the hills;
With shaggy cloak and cape where skies
 Eternally are blue
How I would stare with quiet eyes
 At passing you!
 
And you would stare at static me,
 Beside my patient flock;
And I would watch you silently,
 A one with time and rock.
Then foreign farings you would chart,
 And fly with fearsome wings,
While I would bide to be a part
 Of elemental things.

Yet strangely I would have it so,
 Since I am kin to these,--
To heather heath and bloom ablow,
 And peaks and piney trees.
As diamond star at evenfall,
 And pearly morning mist
Sing in my veins, myself I call
 An Elementalist.

So as in city dirt and din
 I push a grubby pen,
And toil, my bed and board to win,
 I hate the haunts of men.
Beyond brick wall I seem to see
 Fern dells and rocky rills . . .
O crazy dream! O God, to be
 A shephard of the hills!