The Earth Breath

From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight     Through the woodland's purple plumage to the diamond night.     Aureoles of joy encircle every blade of grass     Where the dew-fed creatures silent and enraptured pass.     And the restless ploughman pauses, turns, and wondering,     Deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king;     For a fiery moment looking with the eyes of God     Over fields a slave at morning bowed him to the sod.     Blind and dense with revelation every moment flies.     And unto the mighty mother, gay, eternal, rise     All the hopes we hold, the gladness, dreams of things to be.     One of all thy generations, mother, hails to thee.     Hail, and hail, and hail for ever, though I turn again     From thy joy unto the human vestiture of pain.     I, thy child who went forth radiant in the golden prime,     Find thee still the mother-hearted through my night in time:     Find in thee the old enchantment there behind the veil     Where the gods, my brothers, linger. Hail, for ever hail!