A night: mysterious, tender, quiet, deep; Heavy with flowers; full of life asleep; Thrilling with insect voices; thick with stars; No cloud between the dewdrops and red Mars; The small earth whirling softly on her way, The moonbeams and the waterfalls at play; A million million worlds that move in peace, A million mighty laws that never cease; And one small ant-heap, hidden by small weeds, Rich with eggs, slaves, and store of millet seeds. They sleep beneath the sod And trust in God. A day: all glorious, royal, blazing bright; Heavy with flowers; full of life and light; Great fields of corn and sunshine; courteous trees; Snow-sainted mountains; earth-embracing seas; Wide golden deserts; slender silver streams; Clear rainbows where the tossing fountain gleams; And everywhere, in happiness and peace, A million forms of life that never cease; And one small ant-heap, crushed by passing tread, Hath scarce enough alive to mourn the dead! They shriek beneath the sod, “There is no God!”
A Common Inference
More from Poet
|
The garden beds I wandered by One bright and cheerful morn, When I found a new-fledged butterfly, A-sitting on a thorn, A black and crimson butterfly, All doleful and forlorn. I thought that life could have no sting To infant butterflies, So I gazed on this unhappy thing With wonder... |
High-lying, sea-blown stretches of green turf, Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea, Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky, And, curving over them as long they lie, Beds of wild fleur-de-lys. Wide-flowing, self-sown, stealing near and far, Breaking the green like islands in... |
A night: mysterious, tender, quiet, deep; Heavy with flowers; full of life asleep; Thrilling with insect voices; thick with stars; No cloud between the dewdrops and red Mars; The small earth whirling softly on her way, The moonbeams and the waterfalls at play; A million million worlds that move... |