Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/60

50 Clusters along the measureless dim stream,

Star-budding power, whose infinite of light

Shall break and burst, snowing the million spheres,

White galaxies and rosy-girdled globes,

Firm-coursing lights and tresses comet-shook,

And planetary orbs whose sheathèd fires

The rock encrusts—the early firmament,

Sun, moon and stars; and now red morning shouts

Ethereal welcome to the sea and land,

The green and azure continents of light,

Built for the haunt of finer mystery.

Long was the labor, and sweet life has come;

Housed in the shell, scarfed with the serpent's skin,

It drifts upon the sea, it crawls the ooze;

It casts its films on slime and shale and sand;

It rises up—O miracle of change!

He comes, he comes, the spirit-visioned One,

The child of promise, earth's dear heavenly charge,

The heir of all that was, the prophecy

Of all that shall be, man, the crown of things.

Take him, O Nature, flower and seed divine!

With fragrant seasons harbor him, O Earth!

Bright heaven, with lucid balms his eyelids bathe!

Thou vital air, sustain him! our rich hope,

Our bliss on earth, our immortality

In heaven!-Mockery! mockery! look you there!—