He shall be free to journey
Over the teeming earth,
An insatiable seeker,
A wanderer from his birth,
Clothed in the fragile veil of sense,
With fortitude for girth.
His hands shall have dominion
Of all created things,
To fashion in the likeness
Of his imaginings,
To make his will and thought survive
Unto a thousand springs.
The world shall be his province,
The princedom of his skill;
The tides shall wear his harness,
The winds obey his will;
Till neither flood, nor fire, nor frost,
Shall work to do him ill.
A creature fit to carry
The pure creative fire,
Whatever truth inform him,
Whatever good inspire,
He shall make lovely in all things
To the end of his desire.
St. Michael's Star
In the pure solitude of dusk
One star is set to shine
Above the sundown's dying rose,
A lamp before a shrine.
It is the star of Michael lit
In the minster of the sun,
That every toiling hand may give
Thanks for the day's work done.
For when the almighty word went forth
To bid creation be,—
The glimmering star-tracks on the blue,
The tide-belts on the sea,—
Perfect as planned, from Michael's hand
The lasting hills arose,
Their bases on the poppied plain,
Their peaks in bannered snows.
Cedar and thorn and oak were born;
Green fiddleheads uncurled
In the spring woods; gold adder-tongues
Came forth to glad the world;—
The magic of the punctual seeds,
Each with its pregnant powers,
As the lord Michael fashioned them
To keep their days and hours.
Frail fins to ride the monstrous tide,
Soft wings to poise and gleam,
He formed the pageant tribe by tribe
As vivid as a dream.
And still must his beneficence
Renew, create, sustain,
Sorcery of the wind and sun,
Alchemy of the rain.