AND I who thought the world was done Have found creation just begun Since I have touched a loveliness As lustrous as the mute caress Of gold moonlight on tranquil streams, And gossamer as futile dreams; The loveliness of wild white geese Against the blue where winds release In silver ribbons flying high The fleeting music of their cry; The beauty of cool slanted rains Upon the bosom of dun plains, And drab slopes brave with fertile yield Of dim new grass across each field; Of opal clouds that scarve the sky When pearl grey wisps of dusk float by, Of lace that spiders have spun new To catch a drift of tinsel dew; The loveliness of seas at night When emerald lanes of molten light Are paths that wander from the shore To some mermaid's pink coral door; The loveliness that deep roots know Who, bedded blind that trees may grow, Gnaw in the dark their hungry way Through layered eons of dull clay; The beauty of a river bed Beneath whose limpid waters spread The patterned waves in oozy mold Where lazy ripples bend and fold; A loveliness as big as earth Who gives the snow-swathed mountains birth And huddles them upon her breast Tucked in with sleepy stars to rest; The loveliness of life and death Caught up in one ecstatic breath When naked soul is fused with soul To make a single perfect whole— That lucent moment when a clod Becomes a little part of God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE CHILD'S BEING by HAYDEN CARRUTH CONTRA MORTEM: THE GREAT DEATH by HAYDEN CARRUTH AFTER THE PAPAGO by JAMES GALVIN CACHE LA POUDRE by JAMES GALVIN A BIT OF SKY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |