What, then, did I want? What did I ask to have? 
If the question had been put to me then, 
and if I had been capable of expressing what was in me, 
I should have replied: 
I want only to keep what I have. 
To rise each morning and look out on the sky 
and the grassy dew-wet Earth, 
from day to day, from year to year.
To watch each June and July for spring, 
to feel the same old sweet surprise and delight 
at th'appearance of each familiar flower, 
ev'ry new-born insect, ev'ry bird 
returned once more from the north.
To listen in a trance of delight 
to the wild notes of the golden plover 
coming once more to the great plain, 
flying south, flock succeeding flock 
the whole day long. 
Oh, those wild beautiful cries of the golden plover! 
I could exclaim with Hafiz with but one word changed: 
If after a thousand years 
that sound should float o'er my tomb, 
my bones uprising in their gladness 
would dance in the sepulchre.  
To climb trees and put my hand down 
in the deep hot nest of the Bienteveo 
and feel the hot eggs, 
the five long-pointed cream coloured eggs,
with choc'late spots and splashes at the larger end.
To lie on a grassy bank, with the blue water 
between me and beds of tall bulrushes, 
list'ning to the mysterious sounds of the wind 
and of hidden rails and coots and courlands 
conversing together in strange human-like tones;
to let my sight dwell and feast 
on the camaloté flower 
amid its floating masses of moist vivid green leaves, 
the large almanda-like flower of a purest divine yellow 
that, when plucked, leaves you with nothing 
but a green stem in your hand.  To ride at noon 
on the hottest days when the whole Earth is a-glitter 
with illusory water and see the cattle and horses 
in thousands cov'ring the plain 
at their watering places, 
to visit some haunt of large birds 
at that still, hot hour 
and see storks, ibises, grey herons, 
egrets of a dazzling whiteness 
and rose-coloured spoon-bills 
and flamingoes standing in the shallow water 
in which their motionless forms are reflected. 
To lie on my back on the rust-brown grass in January, 
to gaze up at the wide hot whity-blue sky, 
peopled with millions and myriads of glist'ning balls 
of thistledown, ever floating by. 
To gaze and gaze, until they are to me living things, 
and I, in an ecstasy am with them, 
floating in that immense shining void!