THE EARTH-MOTHER AND HER CHILDREN

Her children all were gathered round her,

One olden, golden day;

Between her tender, drooping eyelids

She watched them feed or play.

Upon the lion's living velvet

She pillowed her fair head;

A white fawn pushed its dewy muzzle

Beneath the hand that fed.

A goldfinch clung upon a ringlet

That brushed her wide, smooth brow;

And, thence, right merrily he answered

His comrades on the bough.

But at her feet there lay a sleeper,

Of subtly-fashioned limb;

Whose motion, force and will to be,

Kept yet their prison dim.

And round about his couch of slumber

The rest a space did make:

“Your peace” ( the Mother told her children )

“Is broken, if he wake!

“Lo! this — the best of all created —

Shall yet an evil bring:

And ye in doubt shall graze the pasture,

And ye in fear shall sing.

“For your dear sake, my lesser children,

I keep him long asleep;

Play on, sing on, a happy season —

His dreams be passing deep!”

Thus, while her children gathered round her,

And while Man sleeping lay,

The fair Earth-Mother softly murmured,

“It is your Golden Day!”