Blooms of the Berry

by Madison Julius Cawein

INVOCATION.

I.

O Life! O Death! O God!
Have I not striven?
Have I not known thee, God,
As thy stars know Heaven?
Have I not held thee true,
True as thy deepest,
Sweet and immaculate blue,
Of nights that feel thy dew?
Have I not known thee true,
O God that keepest?

II.

O God, my father, God!
Didst give me fire
To rise above the clod,
And soar, aspire!
What tho' I strive and strive,
And all my life says live,
The sneerful scorn of men
But beats it down again;
And, O! sun-centered high,
O God! grand poet!
Beneath thy tender sky
Each day new Keatses die,
And thou dost know it!

III.

They know thee beautiful!
They know thee bitter!
And all their eyes are full,
O God! most beautiful!
Of tears that glitter.
Thou art above their tears;
Thou art beyond their years;
Thou sittest, God of Hosts,
Among thy glorious ghosts,
So high and holy;
And canst thou know the tears,
The strivings and the fears,
O God of godly peers!
Of such so lowly?

IV.

They who were fondly fain
To tell what mother pain
Of Nature makes the rain;