EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE
William Herbert Carruth
1759-1924
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 cal 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.