I.
The coy soul of man,
Moving through its time-span,
Unheeding of wings,
Tastes the death of all things—
Of the flower and weed
And the faint-voiced reed.
II.
The fair seasons roll
For you and for me.
The inhabiting soul
Of the flower and tree,
With the day of each
Born to be and to die,—
No eternity-speech,
No eternity-cry
That pierces above,
Nor infinite thrill
At the touch of Love,
Or the voice of His will—
From His fingers begot,—
God-breathed it is not!
III.
'Twas a shy fair one,
Like a beam of light
From the clouded sun,
That rose to the sight
Of the eye of emotion
In the soul of the Greek,
And eternized the form;
And vision, devotion,
Ever fixt on the norm,—
Type of beauty of flower,
Of grove and of bower,
Deathless, unique!
IV.
Not from pole unto pole
Is man's hunger of soul,
But eternity's set
As a deathless fret
In the heart of man
As it beats the earth-span,—
Beating not from the sod,
But an ongoing of God!
And it listens for Him
Over Time's flying rim,
And it sips, or it stings,
A life from all things—
From the flower and the weed
And the faint-voiced reed.