EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE

By William Herbert Carruth

AFIRE-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 the upland and lowland

The charm of the goldenrod, —

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 pathways plod, —

Some call it Consecration,

And others call it God.