Classic Poem

I know it is not she beneath the sod;
Not there imprisoned look, or touch, or smile.
But when we gave her beauty back to God,
That He might keep it safe for us awhile,

We trusted Him whose prescience can find
The raindrop in the rill; whose wisdom knows
How the clouds blossom; Him whose love designed
The immortal fragrance in the mortal rose.

Somehow this beauty must be saved, and known
Hereafter, as 'twas here, by her dear name.
If matter dies not, shall her spirit flown
Not at Heaven's vital torch relight its flame?

What had Creation been but dull despair
If soul, or mind, or body had been made
Each patterned unto each, however fair,
Like to a field of grasses, blade to blade!

What if all colors had been merged in one—
One glare of red,—now Youth's impulse of Life;
One blur of green,—Old Age's benison,
One vast of yellow,—cheer of daily strife?

No! shall the will of God, that made me “I,”
You, you, renounce the glory He foresaw
And by mechanic unanimity
Become the willing prisoner of His law?

Have we not lived on faith these centuries,
Stifled the human, seeking the divine;
Robbed childhood's heritage of its natural ease,
And sipped of Beauty as forbidden wine?

Yet Beauty's soft compulsion holds us fast,
Our only goddess of the Olympian roll,
The sum and counterpart of all the Past.
“Come, live with me,” she cries, “I am the soul.”

Childhood alone is free and sure and brave;
Doubt comes with years to hint that we are doomed.
Oh, let the changing body go, but save
The spirit, unsubmerged and unconsumed!