30. The Earth Breath
George William Russell
FROM the cool and dark-lipped furrows
Breathes a dim delight
Through the woodland’s purple plumage
To the diamond night.
Aureoles of joy encircle
Every blade of grass
Where the dew-fed creatures silent
And enraptured pass.
And the restless ploughman pauses,
Turns and, wondering,
Deep beneath his rustic habit
Finds himself a king;
For a fiery moment looking
With the eyes of God
Over fields a slave at morning
Bowed him to the sod.
Blind and dense with revelation
Every moment flies,
And unto the Mighty Mother,
Gay, eternal, rise
All the hopes we hold, the gladness,
Dreams of things to be.
One of all thy generations,
Mother, hails to thee.
Hail, and hail, and hail for ever,
Though I turn again
From thy joy unto the human
Vestiture of pain.
I, thy child who went forth radiant
In the golden prime,
Find thee still the mother-hearted
Through my night in time;
Find in thee the old enchantment
There behind the veil
Where the gods, my brothers, linger.
Hail, forever, hail!
