The Three Voices

The waves have a story to tell me,     As I lie on the lonely beach;     Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,     The wind has a lesson to teach;     But the stars sing an anthem of glory     I cannot put into speech.     The waves tell of ocean spaces,     Of hearts that are wild and brave,     Of populous city places,     Of desolate shores they lave;     Of men who sally in quest of gold     To sink in an ocean grave.     The wind is a mighty roamer;     He bids me keep me free,     Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,     Hardy and pure as he;     Cling with my love to nature     As a child to the mother-knee.     But the stars throng out in their glory,     And they sing of the God in man;     They sing of the mighty Master,     Of the loom His fingers span;     Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,     And weft in the wondrous plan.     Here by the camp-fire's flicker,     Deep in my blanket curled,     I long for the peace of the pine-gloom     When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,     And the wind and the wave are silent,     And world is singing to world.