Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RELIGION, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RELIGION, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: To learn the secret of the silent grass
Last Line: The life that lasts, tho' I and all men die.
Subject(s): Earth; Flowers; Life; Love; Religion; Secrets; World; Theology


To learn the secret of the silent grass,
The invisible motions of its roots beneath
The flickering shadows; with a mind absolved
From human care, with intellectual joy
To lose oneself in the blind life of grass,
Until the solid ground beneath one's feet
And all its mould and moss and nameless weeds
Melt like a dream, while unawares we slip
Into the obscure regions of dim night;
To grow with the slow-growing trees, to flit
With things of one day's life about the stems
Of hidden flowers, to ride upon the waves
And mingle with the universal air,
This is the true religion, this indeed
True worship of the gods. Impassive dwell
The souls that have attained. The Earth to them,
This fair green earth we live in, is a home,
A natural home, where they in holy joy,
Deep-seated quietude and holy joy,
Pass the short hours wherefrom Eternity
Gathers her harvest. O most sacred Earth,
O free-born Air, grant that no siren song
Of human art, no maze of human thought,
No pleasant fetters of fond human love
May ever come betwixt my soul and ye!
Thus may I live linked with enduring joy
To the kind Earth that bore me, and when Death
Shall give me back to her, may the strong link
Of love betwixt my life and that of trees,
Trees, plants, and all the gentle multitude
Of Earth's most intimate offspring make me share
The life that lasts, tho' I and all men die.





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