Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/88



TRUTH: How beautiful is the song of the warbler in this serene silence.

POET: I cannot hear it.

I hear the moaning of a distant sea ; The sad, salt sea of tears; A never-ending moan across the sands of Time.

TRUTH: The groan of resolute men and of mothers Who cover their heads before death. The feeble moan of little children Who do not understand.

Do you hear the cry of the workers, scourged By the Life-whip, incessant : "Come, sordid, grisly Death, you feed us well"?

POET: Oh, let me catch the warbler's litany. Let me be soothed with Nature's anthem.

TRUTH: But Man makes discord in the tune. There sits the bellied god, with wide-open maw. And into his jaws is marching all the youth of the world.

POET: They shall never know Springtime's budding hope. Nor Summer's laughter; The kiss of grass and matins of the birds, Those happy priestlings of the dawn ; Nor ever guess the sweeping circle of Earth's beautiful

parade. There is for them no message in the clouds ; No fellowship in the soft caressing grasses by the

wayside ; No leafy laughter; nor soothing, sibilant, soliloquies of

leaves.

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