The Miracle

Who beckons the green ivy up     Its solitary tower of stone? What spirit lures the bindweed's cup         Unfaltering on? Calls even the starry lichen to climb By agelong inches endless Time? Who bids the hollyhock uplift     Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high; Fling wide her petals - silent, swift,         Lovely to the sky? Since as she kindled, so she will fade, Flower above flower in squalor laid. Ever the heavy billow rears     All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; But totters as the shore it nears,         Foams to its fall; Where was its mark? on what vain quest Rose that great water from its rest? So creeps ambition on; so climb     Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high, Forgets his birth, small space, brief time,         That he shall die; Dreams blindly in his dark, still air; Consumes his strength; strips himself bare; Rejects delight, ease, pleasure, hope,     Seeking in vain, but seeking yet, Past earthly promise, earthly scope,         On one aim set: As if, like Chaucer's child, he thought All but "O Alma!" nought.