Truly He Hath A Sweet Bed

Brown earth, sun-soaked,     Beneath his head     And over the quiet limbs....     Through time unreckoned     Lay this brown earth for him. Now is he come.     Truly he hath a sweet bed.     The perfume shed     From invisible gardens is chaliced by kindly airs     And carried for welcome to the stranger.     Long seasons ere he came, this wilderness     They habited.     They, and the mist of stars     Down-spread     About him as a hush of vespering birds.     They, and the sun, the moon:     Naught now denies him the moon's coming,     Nor the morning trail of gold,     The luminous print of evening, red     At the sun's tread.     The brown earth holds him.     The stars and little winds, the friendly moon     And sun attend in turn his rest.     They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious,     And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger,     His kinship, knew them once but blindly     In thoughts unsaid,     As a dream that fled.     So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons.     So is his sleep by them for ever companioned.     ...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing     And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter     When their dancing is sped.     Truly he hath a sweet bed.