Classic Poem

A THOUSAND years ago, on stony ground,
A tiny acorn, all unnoticed, fell.
The sunshine smiled on it, the rain-clouds frowned;
At last a rootlet burst its brown smooth shell.

A spear grew upward which a touch might blast,
But still it waxed and strengthened day by day;
The birds found shelter in it as they passed
In gloomy autumn on their southward way.

The reverent generations of mankind
Took pride in it and fenced it round with care;
Tradition in its branches was enshrined;
Each cycle gave it a more royal air.

The tempests wrestled with it, but in vain;
Their force could not its rooted strength o'erthrow;
It triumphed over the summer hurricane;
It bore in patience winter's weight of snow.

The sultry lightning smote its lofty crest,
And giant limbs tore off to strew the mould;
Serenely powerful it stood the test,
And bore aloft its ancient crown of gold.

A thousand years the gold-crowned oak has thrived,
And a wide forest from its bloom has grown:
All from one acorn, by God's plan contrived
To germinate where, as by chance, 'twas thrown.

Oh wondrous type of vast effect from cause,
So puny, so slow in development!
It teaches that in studying God's laws
You find no small, no meaningless event.

As in the alembic of volcanic powers,
By infinite pressure, gas becomes a gem
Of gorgeous color richer than a flower's,
To sparkle on a sultan's diadem,

So all the scattered dreams and hopes men cherished,
So vague, so uninformed, so quickly spent,
Condensed by agony, while nations perished,
Made one bright jewel for God's purpose meant.

Who would have dreamed Columbus, pushing west
Across the trackless waste of troubled brine,
Should find the long-lost Islands of the Blest,
A land of beauty full of oil and wine?

The quivering compass pointed out the path
Amid the pathless billows unexplored;
His faith was firm to brave the tempests' wrath;
His face blenched not though thunders round him roared.

The smiling island where he planted first
The purple-broidered banner of Castile
Seemed by his haughty cruel conquest curst,
But in the end the woe was turned to weal.

God leads the way by labyrinthine turns;
The desert must reveal the Promised Land;
By varied discipline man slowly learns
His part in what the Master Mind has planned.