Jehovah’s face was seen not
By ox or grazing kine;
But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,
Or saw he that look divine?
Was it the wind in passing
That stroked that farmer’s hair?
Or had God’s own hand of wind and flame
Laid benediction there?
Through muffling miles he fancied
Far calls of greeting blew,
Where on sounding plains the lords of war
Hurled down to rear anew.
Glad hail from nation-builders
Crossed faint those dreamland bounds,
Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.
And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.
“There are seven downy meadows
That never before were mown;
There were seven fields of brush and rock
Where now is nor bush nor stone.
There are seven heifers grazing
Where but one could graze before.
O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—
What have you given me more?”
God rose up from the farmer
When the cool of the evening neared;
And the One went forth through the worlds He built,
And the one through the fields he cleared.
The stars outlasting labor
Leaned down o’er the flowering soil;
And all night long o’er His child there leaned
A Toiler more old than toil.
Yale Review Frederick Erastus Pierce
SONG
O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,
Are shadows that can come no more
Still moving unseen on the door
Of Yesternight?
O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,
Are any roses that are dead
Still fragrant where their petals bled
In Junes gone by?
O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....
Think you in some far Shadow-land
One keeps my roses in his hand,
Remembering?
Boston Transcript Ruth Guthrie Harding