To-day the still, deep mind of the Earth
Has steeped in longing her wistful eyes,
A sense of wonder and glad surprise
Thrills thro' her heart with a thought of birth.
The grave All-Mother looks up and smiles,
Her breath comes balmy from sunlit mouth,
Her bosom bare to the ardent south
Is fanned by perfume from fruitful miles.
All winter long has the dear Earth slept
In drifts of snow, 'neath the bane of frost,
Her children sought for the Mother lost,
Yet found her not, and in anguish wept.
All winter long have my senses cried
For warmth of sun, and the blue of sky,
The hard north answered to mock my sigh,
And all the glory of life denied.
The cold mists drifting on land and sea,
Like ghosts of passions burnt out and chill,
Smote heart and soul with the fear of ill,
That cast its awfulness over me.
The dank gray sails, and the dank gray shore,
They melted each in the other's face,
With clammy kiss, in a wan embrace
That left them colder than e'en before.
And thro' the boughs of the moss-grown trees
The sap flowed sluggish, or not at all,
While here and there would a dead leaf fall,
Like thought of harrowing memories.
Then from the heart of the Universe
There rose a wail of unending woe,
An anguished prayer from the deeps below:
' Oh ! Mother, lift from our souls the curse!'
'Oh! Mother, quicken thy sacred womb,
With fire that throbs in the veins of Spring,
Behold the numbness of everything,
And only thou can avert the doom.'
' Oh ! Mother, hear us !' But silent still
The Earth slept on, as it were in death.
Her ice-bound bosom stirred not with breath,
So fast she lay 'neath the winter's will.
I joined my prayer to the wind and trees,
I joined my cry to the striving soil,
I said, 'Oh ! Mother, our endless toil
Has made us sicken with miseries.
' Rise up ! and help us again to live,
Rise up ! uncover thy fruitful breast,
We faint in winter's unrestful rest,
We burn with longings to love and give.'
And as I spoke came a voice more strong
Than all creation's, o'er land and sea
It called our Mother to ecstasy,
And lo ! she stirred, who had slept so long.
She stirred, she opened her drowsy eyes,
And bending down from the dome above,
Beheld the form of embodied Love,
As Spring stepped Earthward from Paradise.
