Poetry

GOD made the world with rhythm and rime—

The sun’s refrain he made the moon;

He swung the stars to beat in time

And set the universe in tune.

He gave the seas their mighty tongue,

He gave his winds their lyric wings,

And thus the very soul of Song

Was woven in the scheme of things.

To-day this wonder was revealed

Upon a twilight colored plain;

I saw it in the town and field,

I heard it in the singing rain.

The bows and birds repeated it,

The streams intoned it as they ran,

And then I saw how closely knit

Were God and Poetry with man.

A rift of sky—a group of trees,

A ripple and a swallow’s dart,

The cadence of a dying breeze,

Like sudden music, swept my heart;

A laughing child looked up and sprang

To greet me at the homeward climb—

And all about me surged and sang

The world God made with rhythm and rime.