ArtMagick Illustrated Poetry Collection

George William Russell (AE)

The Earth Breath

Year written: 1897

From 'The Earth Breath and Other Poems' by A.E. (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!

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