This is its touch upon the blossomed rose, The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves; In dark soil and the silence of the seeds The robe of Spring it weaves; That is its painting on the glorious clouds, And these its emeralds on the peacock's train; It hath its stations in the stars; Its slaves in lightning, wind, and rain. Out of the dark it wrought the heart of man, Out of dull shells the pheasant's pencilled neck; Ever at toil, it brings to loveliness All ancient wrath and wreck. The grey eggs in the golden sun-bird's nest Its treasures are, the bees' six-sided cell Its honey-pot; the ant wots of its ways, The white doves know them well. It spreadeth forth for flight the eagle's wings What time she beareth home her prey; it sends The she-wolf to her cubs; for unloved things It findeth food and friends. It is not marred nor stayed in any use, All liketh it; the sweet white milk it brings To mothers' breasts; it brings the white drops, too, Wherewith the young snake stings. The ordered music of the marching orbs It makes in viewless canopy of sky; In deep abyss of earth it hides up gold, Sards, sapphires, lazuli. Ever and ever bringing secrets forth, It sitteth in the green of forest-glades Nursing strange seedlings at the cedar's root, Devising leaves, blooms, blades. It slayeth and it saveth, nowise moved Except unto the working out of doom; Its threads are Love and Life; and Death and Pain The shuttles of its loom. It maketh and unmaketh, mending all; What it hath wrought is better than hath been; Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans Its wistful hands between. This is its work upon the things ye see, The unseen things are more; men's hearts and minds, The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills, Those, too, the great Law binds. Unseen it helpeth ye with faithful hands, Unheard it speaketh stronger than the storm. Pity and Love are man's because long stress Moulded blind mass to form. It will not be contemned of any one; Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains; The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss, The hidden ill with pains. It seeth everywhere and marketh all Do right--it recompenseth! do one wrong-- The equal retribution must be made, Though DHARMA tarry long. It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs; Times are as nought, tomorrow it will judge, Or after many days.