To Earth

VOL. XVIII

etry No. ¥

A Magazine of Verse

AUGUST 1921

GROWTH

ADVENT

Ot of a silence greater than all words;

Over the unspeakable, dumb,

Everlasting hills

With their muter herds;

Swifter than a blade that kills;

Mightier than prayer;

Fairer than the dawn

When some dew yet remains unbroken;

Stronger than despair;

From the unspoken to the spoken,

While the heart rests momently;

Lovely as the half-uttered words of a child,

More delicate, more mild;

Terrible as the torn breasts of anguish

Oh, fortunate the waiting that shall end in wonder,

And blessed now the patience that is in thy biding;

For now are the herded clouds and the wild rain's thunder

Over the roof of thy quiet seeds' hiding.

We too, O earth, shall need thy blessedness of waiting

For the green flowering of pastures, when the panting

Storm shall cease; though blood be the rain that is abating,

And men be the seeds of our wild planting.

Would venture a truth too lofty

To be expressed;

Whose heart at times is burdened,

When no dream consoles,

With a heritage too mighty

For rooted souls.

HUMILITY

Open the doors of temples, scorn

Their veils! Yet in the flight of bird on sea,

In the fall of leaf from tree,

In the green patient spears of grain, in the torn

Sides of mountains where some verdure clings-

In all these things-

We have enough to brood on till we be

Ready and humble as the corn.

MID-MAY

Put aside your words, and there are left

Stones of the grey walls and apple-trees;

And in the flesh and mind, and in what seems

Birthing almost of an immortal soul,

Virginity and fortitude and hope-

Delicate as blossoms on the gnarled limbs

White, grey and green above the risen grass.