Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/390

362 Whate'er the baffling power

Sent anger and earthquake and a thousand ills,

It made the violet flower,

And the wide world with breathless beauty thrills.

IV

Who built the world made man

With power to build and plan,

A soul all loveliness to love,

Blossom below and lucent blue above,

And new unending beauty to contrive.

He, the creature, may not make

Beautiful beings all alive—

Irised moth nor mottled snake,

The lily's splendor,

The light of glances infinitely tender,

Nor the day's dying glow nor flush of morn,

And yet his handiwork the angels shall not scorn,

When he hath wrought in truth and by Heaven's law,

In lowliness and awe.

Bravely shall he labor, while from his pure hands

Spring fresh wonders, spread new lands;

Son of God, no longer child of fate,

Like God he shall create.

V

When, weary ages hence, this wrong world is set right;

When brotherhood is real

And all that justice can for man is done;

When the fair, fleeing, anguished-for ideal

Turns actual at last; and 'neath the sun

Man hath no human foe;

And even the brazen sky, and storms that blow,

And all the elements have friendlier proved,