We have left our youth behind:
Earth is in its baby years:
Void of wisdom cries the wind,
And the sunlight knows no tears.
When shall twilight feel the awe,
All the rapt thought of the sage,
And the lips of wind give law
Drawn from out their lore of age?
When shall earth begin to burn
With such love as thrills my breast?
When shall we together turn
To our long, long home for rest?
Child and father, we grow old
While you laugh and play with flowers;
And life's tale for us is told
Holding only empty hours.
Giant child, on you await
All the hopes and fears of men.
In thy fulness is our fate—
What till then, oh, what till then?
THE JOY OF EARTH
Oh, the sudden wings arising from the ploughed fields brown
Showered aloft in spray of song the wildbird twitter floats
O'er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down
Nigh the cool brown earth to hush enraptured notes.
Far within a dome of trembling opal throbs the fire,
Mistily its rain of diamond lances shed below
Touches eyes and brows and faces lit with wild desire
For the burning silence whither we would go.
Heart, O heart, once more it is the ancient joy of earth
Breathes in thee and flings the wild wings sunward to the dome
To the light where all the Children of the Fire had birth
Though our hearts and footsteps wander far from home.