Classic Poem

Ere He stooped from the fields of His passionless might
With the music of worlds in His heart,
Love dwelt in a splendour of dazzling light—
In the blaze of His suns apart.

Though He bent to the lull of a garden grot
From the fires of His glowing noon,
To a singing thrush, and a star-gleam caught
In the mesh of a misty moon,

The throbbing chord of His deep desire
Was tuned to a higher theme,
And the joy of His thought leapt up like fire
To mould the face of His dream.

He breathed His love into forms of earth
And called His creation “Man”;
With burdens of toil, with tears and mirth,
He fashioned him true to His plan.

With the sternest tasks He made him strong;
In storms He taught him duty;
He blended strife with light and song
And trained his soul to beauty.

The viewless wonder of His will
Was breathed in art and story;
On every slope of each purple hill
The flowers were glad of His glory.

An ecstasy throbbed at the heart of things
Like the light of joy when the night is gone—
The song of birds and the lift of wings—
The splendour of enlarging dawn.

He moulded me from the shapeless clod;
He breathed on you and called you His child;
We loved each other and knew our God,
Looked up to His face and smiled.