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POEM 



POEM. 



The world is growing old — so sages say 

 And poets sing ; but look abroad to-day : 

 How like a monarch, throned and plenty-crowned, 

 Our regal earth ! her ruddy temples bound 

 With chaplets of bright flowers, and at her feet 

 Her waving harvests and her fruitage sweet. 

 Here are no signs of eld or dull decay, 

 Despite what poets sing and sages say, 



Man ripens and decays ; his glorious powers 

 Dim neath the shade of his declining hours ; 



Age dulls his eye, and ere his knell is rung, 

 Palsies the cunning of his glowing tongue, 

 Man, man decays, but earth is ever young ! 



Dear mother-earth ! as fresh as when at first 

 In Eden's garden her young life was nursed ; — 

 Renewed each year, as often as the spring 

 Sets all the trees astir with blossoming, 

 And witches into music every stream 

 Beneath the magic of her April gleam. 

 See how the generous sap from her own heart 

 Pours without stint, and strengthens every part 

 Of her young offspring : trees and shrubs and flowers 

 Share in her fullness and partake her powers. 

 She paints her roses, and with equal care 

 Flushes with carmine nectarine and pear ; 

 She hangs her grapes out, sweet and purple-dyed, 

 Nor slights the grass green-growing far and wide ; 

 Her loving hands with equal skill adorn 

 The crimsoned tulip and the tasseled corn. 

 No partial step-dame she, our mother-earth ! 

 She counts naught alien nor of stranger birth ; 

 Her broad breast cradles all her love brings forth, 

 Nor weighs her favors by the claimant's worth. 



