A stirring landscape and a generous earth! Freshening courage and benevolent mirth— And then the city, like a hideous sore.... Good God, and what is all this beauty for?
I never knew the earth had so much gold— The fields run over with it, and this hill Hoary and old, Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.
Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God— This fringe of wood, Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod.
You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see Your face grow mystical, as on that night You turned to me, And all the trembling world—and you—were white.
Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; The fields absorb you, color you entire.... And you become A goddess standing in a world of fire!
Lo—to the battle-ground of life, Child, you have come, like a conquering shout, Out of a struggle—into strife; Out of a darkness—into doubt.
Girt with the fragile armor of youth, Child, you must ride into endless wars, With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth, And a banner of love to sweep the stars.
About you the world’s despair will surge; Into defeat you must plunge and grope— Be to the faltering an urge; Be to the hopeless years a hope!
Be to the darkened world a flame; Be to its unconcern a blow— For out of its pain and tumult you came, And into its tumult and pain you go.
Why are the things that have no death The ones with neither sight nor breath! Eternity is thrust upon A bit of earth, a senseless stone. A grain of dust, a casual clod Receives the greatest gift of God. A pebble in the roadway lies— It never dies.
The grass our fathers cut away Is growing on their graves to-day; The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow Eternally will come and go. There is no kind of death to kill The sands that lie so meek and still.... But Man is great and strong and wise— And so he dies.
The aged man, when he beheld winter approaching, counted the leaves as they lapsed from the acacia trees; while his son was talking of the spring.
Meditating on the glory of illustrious lineage I lifted up my eyes and beheld the bitter purple willows growing round the tombs of the exalted Mings.
The coral fisher, who had been a long time beneath the water, rose to the surface with nothing in his hand but a spray of crimson seaweed. In answer to the master of the junk he said, “While I was in the world of fishes this miserable weed appeared to me more beautiful than coral.”