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| GRASSHOPPER, your fairy song | |
| And my poem alike belong | |
| To the dark and silent earth | |
| From which all poetry has birth; | |
| All we say and all we sing | 5 |
| Is but as the murmuring | |
| Of that drowsy heart of hers | |
| When from her deep dream she stirs: | |
| If we sorrow, or rejoice, | |
| You and I are but her voice. | 10 |
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| Deftly does the dust express | |
| In mind her hidden loveliness, | |
| And from her cool silence stream | |
| The cricket’s cry and Dante’s dream; | |
| For the earth that breeds the trees | 15 |
| Breeds cities too, and symphonies. | |
| Equally her beauty flows | |
| Into a savior, or a rose— | |
| Looks down in dream, and from above | |
| Smiles at herself in Jesus’ love. | 20 |
| Christ’s love and Homer’s art | |
| Are but the workings of her heart; | |
| Through Leonardo’s hand she seeks | |
| Herself, and through Beethoven speaks | |
| In holy thunderings around | 25 |
| The awful message of the ground. | |
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| The serene and humble mold | |
| Does in herself all selves enfold— | |
| Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds, | |
| Great dreams, and dauntless deeds, | 30 |
| Science that metes the firmament, | |
| The high, inflexible intent | |
| Of one for many sacrificed— | |
| Plato’s brain, the heart of Christ: | |
| All love, all legend, and all lore | 35 |
| Are in the dust forevermore. | |
| |
| Even as the growing grass | |
| Up from the soil religions pass, | |
| And the field that bears the rye | |
| Bears parables and prophecy. | 40 |
| Out of the earth the poem grows | |
| Like the lily, or the rose; | |
| And all man is, or yet may be, | |
| Is but herself in agony | |
| Toiling up the steep ascent | 45 |
| Toward the complete accomplishment | |
| When all dust shall be, the whole | |
| Universe, one conscious soul. | |
| Yea, the quiet and cool sod | |
| Bears in her breast the dream of God. | 50 |
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| If you would know what earth is, scan | |
| The intricate, proud heart of man, | |
| Which is the earth articulate, | |
| And learn how holy and how great, | |
| How limitless and how profound | 55 |
| Is the nature of the ground— | |
| How without terror or demur | |
| We may entrust ourselves to her | |
| When we are wearied out, and lay | |
| Our faces in the common clay. | 60 |
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| For she is pity, she is love, | |
| All wisdom she, all thoughts that move | |
| About her everlasting breast | |
| Till she gathers them to rest: | |
| All tenderness of all the ages, | 65 |
| Seraphic secrets of the sages, | |
| Vision and hope of all the seers, | |
| All prayer, all anguish, and all tears | |
| Are but the dust, that from her dream | |
| Awakes, and knows herself supreme— | 70 |
| Are but earth when she reveals | |
| All that her secret heart conceals | |
| Down in the dark and silent loam, | |
| Which is ourselves, asleep, at home. | |
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| Yea, and this, my poem, too, | 75 |
| Is part of her as dust and dew, | |
| Wherein herself she doth declare | |
| Through my lips, and say her prayer. | |
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