Poetry Archives

Not all the pageant of the setting sun
    Should yield the tired eyes of man delight,
    No sweet beguiling power had stars at night
    To soothe his fainting heart when day is done,
Nor any secret voice of benison
    Might nature own, were not each sound and sight
    The sign and symbol of the infinite,
    The prophecy of things not yet begun.
So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep,
    No fruitful word, life no power to move
    Our deeper reverence, did we not see
How more than all he said, he was,—how, deep
    Below this broken life, he ever wove
    The finer substance of a life to be.