dots-menu
×

Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  585 The Word

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By RichardRealf

585 The Word

O EARTH! thou hast not any wind that blows

Which is not music; every weed of thine

Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine;

And every humble hedgerow flower that grows,

And every little brown bird that doth sing,

Hath something greater than itself, and bears

A living Word to every living thing,

Albeit it hold the Message unawares.

All shapes and sounds have something which is not

Of them: a Spirit broods amid the grass;

Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought

Lie in the melting shadows as they pass;

The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills

The fringes of the sunsets and the hills.