Of all the fonts from which man’s heart has drawn
Some essence of the majesty of earth,
Some intimation of the human worth,
I reckon first the sunset and the dawn.
For those were fires whose splendor smote his clay
With witness of a light beyond the clod;
Enshrined, he made of radiance a god,
And found his benediction in the day.
And all his eager hands have found to do,
And all his tireless hope and love unite,
In some wise take their symbol from the light,
Our very Heaven based on heaven’s blue.
Tilth beyond tilth, he waits upon the sun,
The first to goad, the last to calm his breast,
With dawns that like a clarion break his rest,
And after-glows that crown his labor done.
THE GARDENS OF THE SEA
Beneath the ocean’s sapphire lid
We gazed far down, and who had dreamed,
Till pure and cold its treasures gleamed,
What lucent jewels there lay hid?—
Opal and jacinth, orb and shell,
Calice and filament of jade,
And fonts of malachite inlaid
With lotus and with asphodel,—
Red sparks that give the dolphin pause,
Lamps of the ocean-elf, and gems
Long lost from crystal diadems,
And veiled in shrouds of glowing gauze.
Below, the sifted sunlight passed
To twilight, where the azure blaze
Of scentless flowers from the haze
About their dim pavilions cast
Betrayed what seemed forgotten pearls,
As shimmering weeds alert with light
Enticed the half-reluctant sight
To caverns where the sea-kelp swirls.