The Earth Spirit

Then spoke the Spirit of the Earth,

    Her gentle voice like a soft water’s song —

None from my loins have ever birth,

    But what to joy and love belong;

I faithful am, and give to thee

Blessings great, and give them free.

I have woven shrouds of air

    In a loom of hurrying light,

For the trees which blossoms bear,

    And gilded them with sheets of bright;

I fall upon the grass like love’s first kiss,

I make the golden flies and their fine bliss.

    I paint the hedge-rows in the lane,

And clover white and red the pathways bear,

    I laugh aloud in sudden gusts of rain,

To see the ocean lash himself in air;

I throw smooth shells and weeds along the beach,

And pour the curling waves far o’er the glassy reach;

Swing birds’ nests in the elms, and shake cool moss

Along the aged beams and hide their loss.

The very broad rough stones I gladden too;

    Some willing seeds I drop along their sides,

Nourish the generous plant with freshening dew,

    Till there, where all was waste, true joy abides.

The peaks of aged mountains, with my care

    Smile in the red of glowing morn elate;

I bind the caverns of the sea with hair,

    Glossy, and long, and rich as king’s estate;

 

Thy full forgiveness for my sins I sue,

    My mother! learn thy child can think and feel.

Mother dear! wilt pardon one

    Who loved not the generous sun,

Nor thy seasons loved to hear

Singing to the busy year —

 

Now thy chill airs round the day

And leave me my time to pray.

Mother dear! The day must come,

When I, thy child, shall make my home,

My long, last home amid the grass,

Over which thy warm hands pass.

Ah me! do let me lie

Gently on thy breast to die;

I know my prayers iwll reach thy ear,

    Thou art with me while I ask,

Nor a child refuse to hear,

    Who would learn his little task.

Let me take my part with thee

    In the gray clouds, or thy light,

Laugh with thee upon the sea

    Or idle on the land by night.

 

And better to the grave with feelings torn,

    So in our step strides truth and honest trust

In the great love of things, than to be slaves

    To forms, whose ringing sides each stroke we give

Stamps with a hollower want. Yes, to our graves

    Hurry, before we in the heavens’ look live,