You ask how love can keep the mortal soul
Strong to the pitch of joy throughout the years.
Ask how your brave cicada on the bough
Keeps the long sweet insistence of his cry;
Ask how the Pleiads steer across the night
In their serene unswerving mighty course;
Ask how the wood-flowers waken to the sun,
Unsummoned save by some mysterious word;
Ask how the wandering swallows find your eaves
Upon the rain-wind with returning spring;
Ask who commands the ever-punctual tide
To keep the pendulous rhythm of the sea;
And you shall know what leads the heart of man
To the far haven of his hopes and fears.