Nature The Healer

When all the world has gone awry,     And I myself least favour find     With my own self, and but to die     And leave the whole sad coil behind,     Seems but the one and only way;     Should I but hear some water falling     Through woodland veils in early May,     And small bird unto small bird calling -     O then my heart is glad as they.     Lifted my load of cares, and fled     My ghosts of weakness and despair,     And, unafraid, I raise my head     And Life to do its utmost dare;     Then if in its accustomed place     One flower I should chance find blowing,     With lovely resurrected face     From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing -     I laugh to think of my disgrace.     A simple brook, a simple flower,     A simple wood in green array, -     What, Nature, thy mysterious power     To bind and heal our mortal clay?     What mystic surgery is thine,     Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding,     That even so sad a heart as mine     Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding? -     Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.     I think we are not otherwise     Than all the children of thy knee;     For so each furred and winged one flies,     Wounded, to lay its heart on thee;     And, strangely nearer to thy breast,     Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing,     Asking but there awhile to rest,     With wisdom beyond our revealing -     Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.