A slightly longer poem – read slowly and savour the imagery and vastness and magnificence of spectrum!
Each in his own tongue
A fire-mist* and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian**,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod, —
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod, —
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in:
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod, —
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood***;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod, —
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
— William Herbert Carruth
Notes –
*fire-mist: swarm of particles which swirled down together by mutual gravitation and heated by constant collision and increasing pressure and condensed to form the planet and the Sun
**saurian: dinosaur
***rood: cross
shri says:
Beautiful!
December 3, 2006 — 5:49 am
Lakshmi says:
I thought so too – so I posted it.
December 3, 2006 — 11:14 pm
fugney says:
Well, I was tempted to satirise but let me just be polite. And so, I quote:
I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programs a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature, to which I reply and say, “Well, it’s funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the almighty, always quote beautiful things, they always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses.” But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he’s five years old, and I reply and say, “Well presumably the god you speak about created the worm as well,” and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful god with that action.
—- David Attenborough
December 3, 2006 — 5:20 pm
Lakshmi says:
“Well presumably the god you speak about created the worm as well,” and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful god with that action.
To each his own viewpoint, I say. In any case, someone’s doubt or belief in anything does not change the truth, whatever it is.
December 3, 2006 — 11:14 pm
fugney says:
You know, I think that frogs are the smartest animals on the planet.
December 4, 2006 — 4:52 am
Lakshmi says:
Well, I didn’t think so but now that you have mentioned it, I should find out more about this.
December 4, 2006 — 4:23 pm
fugney says:
You don’t really believe that, do you?
(If you do, I expect a follow-up post researching the reasons behind intelligence and why frogs may or may not be the smartest animals on the planet. But I think “intelligence” is such a complex matter, it is impossible to know for sure.)
December 4, 2006 — 6:27 pm
Anonymous says:
you’ve got it all wrong. The order of intelligence on this planet is:
1) Mice
2) Dolphins
3) Man
for further clarification, see “Adams, Douglas”
Bharat
December 6, 2006 — 7:38 am
Anonymous says:
nice poem, but one more asterisk, and we’d be looking at it in a different light. 😉
Bharat
December 6, 2006 — 7:39 am
Lakshmi says:
and what would that light show??
December 6, 2006 — 7:20 pm