012
Item
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Title
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012
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Transcription
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The golden sunflowers, myriad-blossoming, blaze,
From hill to golden hill;
And melt at last into the golden haze
Of the great distance. All the land is still
With solitude, and only the quick bird
Chirps in the grass; no other sound is heard
To praise God's golden gift.
The white clouds sail and sift
The mottled moonlight over the wide land,
The slow streams flow; the narrow forests stand
Huddled and timorous for loneliness.
Has God not given gifts enough to bless
Our singers from their silence? Has our ear
Grown all too dull to hear
The still, sweet voice of Nature's tenderness?
Has she no whisper to awake
The soul that dreams, the song that sleeps,
Until its thrilling chords shall shake
To the gray hearts of older lands,
To where the ocean's iron deeps
Complain upon their endless sands?
To love, to know, to sing,—these three
Are God's most precious gifts to men,
To know what has been, and to see
The ripening of what shall be,
Far off beyond the present's ken.
To read life's book, and understand;
To tell the treasury of stars,
And through Death's unrelenting bars
To spy the bounds of spirit-land.
To love, to know life fair, to see
Earth beautiful, till each gray tree
Shall tell its message, each star shine
Some consolation, and the line
Of the last hills shall speak of peace;
Till war and hate and envy cease,
And over all the smiling land shall chime
The petalled joy-bells of God's blossoming time.
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Rights
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To inquire about usage, please contact Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. These images are for educational use only. Not all images are available for publication.
