Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/88

60 Lit up the towering boles, till nigh and nigher

They gathered round, a ghostly company,

Like beasts who seek to know what men may be.

Then to our hemlock beds, but not to sleep—

For listening to the stealthy steps that creep

About the tent, or falling branch, but most

A noise was like the rustling of a host,

Or like the sea that breaks upon the shore—

It was the pine-tree's murmur. More and more

It took a human sound. These words I felt

Into the skyey darkness float and melt:—

"Heardst thou these wanderers reasoning of a time

When men more near the Eternal One shall climb?

How like the new-born child, who cannot tell

A mother s arm that wraps it warm and well!

Leaves of His rose; drops in His sea that flow,—

Are they, alas, so blind they may not know

Here, in this breathing world of joy and fear,

We can no nearer get to God than here."

MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT

mountain that the morn doth kiss

Glad greets its shining neighbor;

Lord! heed the homage of our bliss,

The incense of our labor.

Sharp smites the sun like burning rain,

And field and flower languish;

Hear, Lord! the pleading of our pain,

The passion of our anguish.