THE DUMB earth looks into my face and spreads her arms about me. At night the fingers of the stars touch my dreams. They know my former name. Their whispers remind me of the music of a long silent lullaby. They bring to my mind the smile of a face seen in the gleam of the first daybreak. There is love in each speck of earth and joy in the spread-of the sky. I care not if I become dust, for the dust is touched by his feet. I care not if I become a flower, for the flower he takes up in his hand. He is in the sea, on the shore; he is with the ship that carries all. Whatever I am I am blessed and blessed is this earth of dear dust.
THERE ON THE crest of the hill stands the Man of faith amid the snow-white silence, He scans the sky for some signal of light, and when the clouds thicken and the nightbirds scream as they fly he cries, 'Brothers, despair not, for Man is great.' But they never heed him, for they believe that the elemental brute is eternal and goodness in its depth is darkly cunning in deception. When beaten and wounded they cry, 'Brother, where art thou?' The answer comes, 'I am by your side.' But they cannot see in the dark and they argue that the voice is of their own desperate desire, that men are ever condemned to fight for phantoms in an interminable desert of mutual menace.
WHILE I WALK to my King's house at the end of the day the travellers come to ask me- 'What hast thou for King's tribute?' I do not know what to show them or how to answer, for I have merely this song. My preparation is large in my house, where the claim is much and many are the claimants. But when I come to my King's house I have only this single song to offer it for his wreath.