Man is amazed with sin and sick with terror, Traveling the earth-roads bleak with wind and stone. To him each fellow face becomes a mirror Sealed with the long gray sorrow of his own. He stands heart-leaden by the flowering way, His debt defaulted to the God he owes. He walks with blind eyes and deaf ears by day, Unstirred by wild-bloom, birds or singing snows. But let him cup a leaf between his fingers And listen to the orioles' outcry. There is a core of love within him deep, Greater than the depression of its sleep, That will awake to see that beauty lingers Beyond his grief, across the lupine sky. |