How long, how long I've yearned to tread the sky!
Yet gravity holds me within its grasp;
The age-old limit of the human form.
And still the question stirs within my breast:
Would I by science seek to change myself
Had God but deigned to outfit Man with wings?
Had God deigned Man to be adorned with wings?
He'd surely war in conquest of the sky,
And leave no place for those crushed, like myself,
By mankind's hatred and Earth's heavy grasp.
I hold the firm conviction in my breast –
The sky befits a nobler, gentler form.
Yet also I'm intrigued by maiden-form;
Should colors bright adorning feathered wings
Not complement a softer face and breast?
Then render me a daughter of the sky –
Begin, by treatment brought within my grasp,
The long and slow remaking of myself.
But no-one understands besides myself
How I could choose to thus remold my form;
See only mutant arms and clumsy grasp –
A poor and twisted semblance of wings!
How long before I might embrace the sky,
And soothe the longing ache within my breast?
In broadened hip and swelling of the breast,
In softened face and voice, I make myself
A maiden fit to dwell in open sky.
How strange they'll find it, my inverted form:
Forsaking hands, I'll bear myself on wings,
With talons which once trod the earth to grasp!
And finally with talons sharp I grasp
My human raiment – liberate my breast –
Unfurl completed, softly-feathered wings.
I slip the bonds of Earth, and free myself
From mankind's rage and struggle, fears, and form;
At last, in heart and truth, caress the sky.
Now freed from earthly grasp, I find myself –
In maiden's breast, in harpy's graceful form;
On feathered wings, I dance across the sky.