Page:The Poet in the Desert.djvu/93



POET: I am lifted up and meditate above the clouds. I see we are but dwarfed and stunted things. Wanderers in a desert, running about in a lost circle, Cheated by the things which seem to be, But are not.

TRUTH: You are prisoners in a dark cave And cannot grow unto the stature of your souls.

POET: Before me is a sea of faces, Pale, passionate, despairing ; And in each one's face I see mine own. Nature has given me to dive into the depths of the sky; To catch faintly the pulsing tread of the stars When, through their bright recessional, we commune

together. I know that life endures no longer than the breaking of a

bubble ; Yet I have made it bitter for my brothers. April calls me from the jocund fields. I understand the gossip of the trees in summer; The adoration of the birds. And the acquiescence of the insects. Wind and sea speak to me. Their interrogation is one.

The low-muttered music of the rivers sounds to me As if the unforgotten dead were striving to talk unto the

living. Dumbly, yet happily, murmuring, in sobbing cadences. Skies, rivers, soft-speaking winds, quick-winged birds. Shy hidden insects, frogs and tree-toads. All say to me, "Life is joy. Love is life. "Life is ourselves and greater than ourselves. "Love is ourselves and greater than ourselves.

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