Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/151

Rh Sun-kissed and fruitful, every clod is breeding
 * A petty life, too small to reach the eye:

So must it be, with no Man thinking, leading,
 * The generations creep their course and die.

Hapless the lands, and doomed amid the races.
 * That give no answer to this royal test;

Their toiling tribes will droop ignoble faces,
 * Till earth in pity takes them back to rest.

A vast monotony may not be evil.
 * But God's light tells us it cannot be good;

Valley and hill have beauty—but the level
 * Must bear a shadeless and a stagnant brood.

I bring the touchstone, Motherland, to thee.
 * And test thee trembling, fearing thou shouldst fail;

If fruitless, sonless, thou wert proved to be.
 * Ah, what would love and memory avail?