NEW YORK, _September_, 1908.
Are ye so sharp set for the centre of the earth, are ye so hungry for
the centre of things,
O rains and springs and rivers of the mountains?
Towards the centre of the earth, towards the very Middle of things, ye
will fall, ye will run, the Centre will draw ye, Gravity will drive you
and draw you in one:
But the Centre ye will not reach, ye will come as near as the
plains—watering them in coming so near—and ye will come as near as the
bottom of the Ocean—seeing and working many marvels as ye come so near.
But the Centre of Things ye will not reach,
O my rivers and rains and springs of the mountains.
Provision is made that ye shall not: ye would be merged, ye could not
return.
Nor shall my Soul be merged in God, though tending, though tending.
[_Hymns of the Mountains,_
_and Other Poems_]
To believe in God would be much less hard if it were not for the wind.
Pray hold one little minute, I cry: O spare this once to bite yonder
poor old shivering soul in the bare house, let the rags have but a
little chance to warm yon woman round the city corner. Stop, stop, wind:
but I might as well talk to the wind: and lo, the proverb paralyzes
prayer, and I am ready to say: Good God, is it possible thou canst stop
this wind which at this moment is mocking ten thousand babies and
thin-clad mothers with the unimaginable anguish of cold—is it possible
thou canst stop this, and wilt not? Do you know what cold is? Story of
the Prisoner, &c., &c., and the stone.
The courses of the wind, and the shifts thereof, as also what way the
clouds go; and that which is happening a long way off; and the full face
of the sun; and the bow of the Milky Way from end to end; as also the
small, the life of the fiddler-crab, and the household of the marsh-hen;
and more, the translation of black ooze into green blade of marsh-grass,
which is as if filth bred heaven:
This a man seeth upon the marsh.
[_Hymns of the Marshes_]
I wish, said the poet, that you should do thus and so:
Laugh you thus, what matters a poet's wish?
The poet's wish is Nature's law.
It is for the satisfaction thereof that things are,
And that Time moves.
Observe Science in modern times proving the old poet's dreams.
Nature with all her train of powers
And Time with his ordered hours,
And Space, ... and said,
What dost thou wish, my lord?
[_Credo, and Other Poems_]
How dusty it is!
In trades and creeds and politics, much wind is about and the earth is
dry;
I must lay this dust, that men may see and breathe;
There is need of rain, and I am it.
[_Credo, and Other Poems_]