St. Michael's Star

In the pure solitude of dusk

One star is set to shine

Above the sundown's dying rose,

A lamp before a shrine.

It is the star of Michael lit

In the minster of the sun,

That every toiling hand may give

Thanks for the day's work done.

For when the almighty word went forth

To bid creation be,—

The glimmering star-tracks on the blue,

The tide-belts on the sea,—

Perfect as planned, from Michael's hand

The lasting hills arose,

Their bases on the poppied plain,

Their peaks in bannered snows.

Cedar and thorn and oak were born;

Green fiddleheads uncurled

In the spring woods; gold adder-tongues

Came forth to glad the world;—

The magic of the punctual seeds,

Each with its pregnant powers,

As the lord Michael fashioned them

To keep their days and hours.

Frail fins to ride the monstrous tide,

Soft wings to poise and gleam,

He formed the pageant tribe by tribe

As vivid as a dream.

And still must his beneficence

Renew, create, sustain,

Sorcery of the wind and sun,

Alchemy of the rain.

Teeming with God, the kindly sod

Yearns through the summer days

With the mute eloquence of flowers,

Its only means of praise.

At dusk and dawn the tranquil hills

Throb to the song of birds,

And all the dim blue silence thrills

To transport not of words.

For earth must breed to spirit's need,

Clay to the finer clay,

That soul through sense find recompense

And rapture on her way.

And man, from dust and dreaming wrought,

To all things must impart

The trend and likeness of his thought,

The passion of his heart.

The love and lore he shall acquire

To word and deed must dare;

Resemblances of God his sire

His voice and mien must bear.

His children's children shall portray

The skill which he bestows

On living; and what life must mean

His craftsman's instinct knows.

Line upon line and tone by tone,

The visioned form he gives

To sound and color, wood and stone,

Takes loveliness and lives.

He sees his project's soaring hope

Grow substance, and expand

To measure a diviner scope

Beneath his patient hand.

To pencil, brush, and burnisher

His wizardry he lends,

And to the care of lathe and loom

His secret he commends.

In hues and forms and cadences

New beauty he instills,

A brother by the right of craft

To Michael of the hills.