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Wishes

a poem by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I wish we could live as the flowers live,

To breathe and to bloom in the summer and sun;

To slumber and sway in the heart of the night,

And to die when our glory had done.

I wish we could love as the bees love,

To rest or to roam without sorrow or sigh;

With laughter, when, after the wooer had won,

Love flew with a whispered good-bye.

I wish we could die as the birds die,

To fly and to fall when our beauty was best:

No trammels of time on the years of our face;

And to leave but an empty nest.