A FEAR.

O Mother Earth, I have a fear

Which I would tell to thee —

Softly and gently in thine ear

When the moon and we are three.

Thy grass and flowers are beautiful;

Among thy trees I hide;

And underneath the moonlight cool

Thy sea looks broad and wide;

But this I fear — lest thou shouldst grow

To me so small and strange,

So distant I should never know

On thee a shade of change,

Although great earthquakes should uplift

Deep mountains from their base,

And thy continual motion shift

The lands upon thy face;—

The grass, the flowers, the dews that lie

Upon them as before —

Driven upwards evermore, lest I

Should love these things no more.

Even now thou dimly hast a place

In deep star galaxies!

And I, driven ever on through space,

Have lost thee in the skies!