48 
AUGUST. 
How doth his patient strength the rude March wind 
Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, 
And win the soil that fain would be unkind, 
To swell his revenues with proud increase ! 
He is the gem; and all the landscape wide 
(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) 
Seems but the setting, worthless all beside, 
An empty socket, were he fallen thence. 
So from oft converse with life’s wintry gales, 
Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots 
The inspiring earth; how otherwise avails 
The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots? 
So every year that falls with noiseless flake 
Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, 
And make hoar age revered for age’s sake, 
Hot for traditions of youth’s leafy pride. 
So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate, 
True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, 
So between earth and heaven stand simply great, 
That these shall seem but their attendants both; 
For nature’s forces with obedient zeal 
Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; 
As quickly the pretender’s cheat they feel, 
And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. 
Lord! all Thy works are lessons, each contains 
Some emblem of man’s all-containing soul; 
Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, 
Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole ? 
Make me the least of Thy Dodona-grove, 
Cause me some message of Thy truth to bring, 
Speak but a word through me, nor let Thy love 
Among Thy boughs disdain to perch and sing. 
Lowell 
