Classic Poem

Behold how Nature in her elusive mantle,
More hushed than Night,
Soft-trailing as the clouds,
Goes, like a mother, to her perfect work.
Gentle as Sleep,
More comforting than Death,
She lifts the sea unto the mountain-top
Without a sound,
And pours continually the everlasting urns.
The rivers murmur as gods that dream,
And the benignant mountains guard their slumber.
Their heads are pillowed on Eternity;
Their never-sleeping voices are soothing.
Consider, also, the rain,
The very wine of days;
How noiselessly it seeks the slender roots,
As a bride creeps to her love;
And who has ever heard a cry or noise
From the frail and thready roots
Which uplift the trees,
Garnish the earth with grass
And spread abroad the blazonry of flowers?
The frail roots whose delicate fingers distill
Earth's miracle of nectared fruits,
And never make a sound.
Nature has laid her finger on her lips.
Night and day she teaches that Beauty is her state,
Silence her delight,
And Freedom her condition.
After Man has shouted his cries
And fretted the air with his clamor,
Lo, he lies down, also, to the great Silence,
And is gathered up again by the patient roots
Into larger beauty.