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 cornfileds,
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

Ghosts of Dreams

WE are all of us dreamers of dreams,
On visions our childhood is fed;
And the heart of a child is unhaunted, it seems,
By ghosts of dreams that are dead.

From childhood to youth's but a span,
And the years of our life are soon sped;
But the youth is no longer a youth, but a man,
When the first of his dreams is dead.

'Tis a cup of wormwood and gall,
When the doom of a great man is said;
And the best of a man is under a pall
When the best of his dreams is dead.

He may live on by compact and plan
When the fine bloom of living is shed,
But God pity the little that's left of a man
When most of his dreams are dead.

Let him show a brave face if he can;
Let him woo fame and fortune instead;
Yet there's not much to do, but to bury a man
When the last of his dreams is dead.

William Herbert Carruth

--My interpretation: There is nothing left to live for if your dream is dead. As Alber Schweitzer said, "The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he still lives."