Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922.

Earth

GRASSHOPPER, your fairy song

And my poem alike belong

To the dark and silent earth

From which all poetry has birth;

All we say and all we sing

Is but as the murmuring

Of that drowsy heart of hers

When from her deep dream she stirs:

If we sorrow, or rejoice,

You and I are but her voice.

Deftly does the dust express

In mind her hidden loveliness,

And from her cool silence stream

The cricket’s cry and Dante’s dream;

For the earth that breeds the trees

Breeds cities too, and symphonies.

Equally her beauty flows

Into a savior, or a rose—

Looks down in dream, and from above

Smiles at herself in Jesus’ love.

Christ’s love and Homer’s art

Are but the workings of her heart;

Through Leonardo’s hand she seeks

Herself, and through Beethoven speaks

In holy thunderings around

The awful message of the ground.

The serene and humble mold

Does in herself all selves enfold—

Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds,

Great dreams, and dauntless deeds,

Science that metes the firmament,

The high, inflexible intent

Of one for many sacrificed—

Plato’s brain, the heart of Christ:

All love, all legend, and all lore

Are in the dust forevermore.

Even as the growing grass

Up from the soil religions pass,

And the field that bears the rye

Bears parables and prophecy.

Out of the earth the poem grows

Like the lily, or the rose;

And all man is, or yet may be,

Is but herself in agony

Toiling up the steep ascent

Toward the complete accomplishment

When all dust shall be, the whole

Universe, one conscious soul.

Yea, the quiet and cool sod

Bears in her breast the dream of God.

If you would know what earth is, scan

The intricate, proud heart of man,

Which is the earth articulate,

And learn how holy and how great,

How limitless and how profound

Is the nature of the ground—

How without terror or demur

We may entrust ourselves to her

When we are wearied out, and lay

Our faces in the common clay.

For she is pity, she is love,

All wisdom she, all thoughts that move

About her everlasting breast

Till she gathers them to rest:

All tenderness of all the ages,

Seraphic secrets of the sages,

Vision and hope of all the seers,

All prayer, all anguish, and all tears

Are but the dust, that from her dream

Awakes, and knows herself supreme—

Are but earth when she reveals

All that her secret heart conceals

Down in the dark and silent loam,

Which is ourselves, asleep, at home.

Yea, and this, my poem, too,

Is part of her as dust and dew,

Wherein herself she doth declare

Through my lips, and say her prayer.