EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE - William Herbert Carruth Poems

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.

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