And though debased, still looks above.
(The heathen even hopes beyond this earth.)
Stamped in every line and feature,
There is the image still of Love,
Sweet Love, fast-graven in the heart at birth.
Our lives-long our asking hearts keep fretting:
We beat the tangles of the world’s wide wild-wood,
Remorsefully and endlessly regretting
The loss of that sweet innocence of childhood.
The world is like us.—We are it!