By William Herbert Carruth
AFIRE-MIST and a planet, —
A crystal and a cell, —
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod, —
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high, —
And all over the upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod, —
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in, —
Come from the mystic ocean
Whose rim no foot has trod, —
Some of us call it longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty, —
A mother starved for her brood, —
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathways plod, —
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.