Unwitting where it might lead, How it came, for the anguish to cease, And the Questions that sow not nor spin, This wisdom, rough-written, and black, As of veins that from venom bleed, I had with the peace within; Or patience, mortal of peace, Compressing the surgent strife In a heart laid open, not mailed, To the last blank hour of the rack, When struck the dividing knife: When the hand that never had failed In its pressure to mine hung slack. But this in myself did I know, Not needing a studious brow, Or trust in a governing star, While my ears held the jangled shout The children were lifting afar: That natures at interflow With all of their past and the now, Are chords to the Nature without, Orbs to the greater whole: First then, nor utterly then Till our lord of sensations at war, The rebel, the heart, yields place To brain, each prompting the soul. Thus our dear Earth we embrace For the milk, her strength to men. And crave we her medical herb, We have but to see and hear, Though pierced by the cruel acerb, The troops of the memories armed Hostile to strike at the nest That nourished and flew them warmed. Not she gives the tear for the tear. Weep, bleed, rave, writhe, be distraught, She is moveless. Not of her breast Are the symbols we conjure when Fear Takes leaven of Hope. I caught, With Death in me shrinking from Death, As cold from cold, for a sign Of the life beyond ashes: I cast, Believing the vision divine, Wings of that dream of my Youth To the spirit beloved: ’twas unglassed On her breast, in her depths austere: A flash through the mist, mere breath, Breath on a buckler of steel. For the flesh in revolt at her laws, Neither song nor smile in ruth, Nor promise of things to reveal, Has she, nor a word she saith: We are asking her wheels to pause. Well knows she the cry of unfaith. If we strain to the farther shore, We are catching at comfort near. Assurances, symbols, saws, Revelations in legends, light To eyes rolling darkness, these Desired of the flesh in affright, For the which it will swear to adore, She yields not for prayers at her knees; The woolly beast bleating will shear. These are our sensual dreams; Of the yearning to touch, to feel The dark Impalpable sure, And have the Unveiled appear; Whereon ever black she beams, Doth of her terrible deal, She who dotes over ripeness at play, Rosiness fondles and feeds, Guides it with shepherding crook, To her sports and her pastures alway. Not she gives the tear for the tear: Harsh wisdom gives Earth, no more; In one the spur and the curb: An answer to thoughts or deeds; To the Legends an alien look; To the Questions a figure of clay. Yet we have but to see and hear, Crave we her medical herb. For the road to her soul is the Real: