Saturday, March 31, 2012

Evolution or God?



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.

-- William Herbert Carruth

2 comments:

ed pacht said...

I don't think the word is "or", but rather "and". I think that's the way it was intended by Carruth -- in each case the "some" and the "others" are both speaking aright, and ultimately, behind all the observations, there indeed is God.
Thank you for sharing a beautiful and very deep piece.

ed

Alice C. Linsley said...

Carruth was a Unitarian-Universalist so we need not agree with his theology. I agree that it is a beautiful poem.