Blooming among Ferns and Crags

Yes, a wearied Heart we know
     Earth has foot-ways harsh and ragged,
     Thorny wilds and canyons jagged,
Storms above, and pits below!
But we see the columbine
     Very sweet and fragile, clinging
     To the thunder-cracks, and flinging
Cedars round it rare and fine;

And along the earthquake’s path
     We behold the wild rock roses
     Red’ning the stone lips of fosses
To oblivion of its wrath.
Holy Nature, Mother fain,
     Holds upon her bosom, longing,
     All the manifold and thronging
Children of her joy and pain.

She is good, and goodly still
     Are the very pangs and tortures
     By which she would scourge and scorch us
From the tincture of our ill,
If ungenial, rough and rude
     Be the forms and souls around thee,—
     And their angled edges wound thee
Even when their hearts mean good,—

Yet the Power who from the mire
     Rears the virginal white lily,
     Will not fail to crown, and fill thee
With thy purest hope’s desire.
Be the Nymphed of the fen;
     Be the Wild-rose of the granite,
     Sweetening the faint winch that fan it,
Paying God’s love back to men.

All things, good or evil, serve us;
     God sees wheat where granites boil
     Glaciers grind the rock to soil;
Hunger-pangs to action nerve us.
Diamond natures crystallize
     In the dark of rain and sorrow.
     To flesh out some golden marrow
To a grand and glad surprise.

Through the love of fair and free
     In the earth, the sky and waters,
     Angels call us, sons and daughters
Of the Eternal Joy to be.
Keep their promise, still and deep,
     In the chamber of thy fancies,
     In thy veiled heart’s young romances
In the dreams of day and sleep.

Look within, and upward look
     From thy fields of humble duty,
     And the everlasting Beauty
Shall not miss thy lowly work.
All its buds will grow and bloom,
     All its misty, dim suggestions
     Will flash light upon life’s questions
Far beyond the very tomb!