Mother of all the high-strung poets and
singers departed,
Mother of all the grass that weaves over their
graves the glory of the field,
Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-
bosomed, patient, impassive,
Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and sor-
rows!
Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth
below thy breast,
Issued in some Strange way, thou lying motion-
less, voiceless,
All these songs of nature, rhythmical, passionate,
yearning,
Coming in music from earth, but not unto earth
returning.
Dust are the blood-red hearts that beat in time
to these measures,
Thou hast taken them back to thyself, secretly,
irresistibly
Drawing the crimson currents of life down, down,
down
Deep into thy bosom again, as a river is lost in
the sand.
But the souls of the singers have entered into
the songs that revealed them,--
Passionate songs, immortal songs of joy and
grief and love and longing:
Floating from heart to heart of thy children, they
echo above thee:
Do they not utter thy heart, the voices of those
that love thee?
Long hadst thou lain like a queen transformed by
some old enchantment
Into an alien shape, mysterious, beautiful, speech-
less,
Knowing not who thou wert, till the touch of thy
Lord and Lover
Working within thee awakened the man-child to
breathe thy secret.
All of thy flowers and birds and forests and flow-
ing waters
Are but enchanted forms to embody the life of
the spirit;
Thou thyself, earth-mother, in mountain and
meadow and ocean,
Holdest the poem of God, eternal thought and
emotion.