In the pure solitude of dusk One star is set to shine Above the sundown's dying rose, A lamp before a shrine.
It is the star of Michael lit In the minster of the sun, That every toiling hand may give Thanks for the day's work done.
For when the almighty word went forth To bid creation be,— The glimmering star-tracks on the blue, The tide-belts on the sea,—
Perfect as planned, from Michael's hand The lasting hills arose, Their bases on the poppied plain, Their peaks in bannered snows.
Cedar and thorn and oak were born; Green fiddleheads uncurled In the spring woods; gold adder-tongues Came forth to glad the world;—
The magic of the punctual seeds, Each with its pregnant powers, As the lord Michael fashioned them To keep their days and hours.
Frail fins to ride the monstrous tide, Soft wings to poise and gleam, He formed the pageant tribe by tribe As vivid as a dream.
And still must his beneficence Renew, create, sustain, Sorcery of the wind and sun, Alchemy of the rain.
Teeming with God, the kindly sod Yearns through the summer days With the mute eloquence of flowers, Its only means of praise.
At dusk and dawn the tranquil hills Throb to the song of birds, And all the dim blue silence thrills To transport not of words.
For earth must breed to spirit's need, Clay to the finer clay, That soul through sense find recompense And rapture on her way.
And man, from dust and dreaming wrought, To all things must impart The trend and likeness of his thought, The passion of his heart.
The love and lore he shall acquire To word and deed must dare; Resemblances of God his sire His voice and mien must bear.
His children's children shall portray The skill which he bestows On living; and what life must mean His craftsman's instinct knows.
Line upon line and tone by tone, The visioned form he gives To sound and color, wood and stone, Takes loveliness and lives.
He sees his project's soaring hope Grow substance, and expand To measure a diviner scope Beneath his patient hand.
To pencil, brush, and burnisher His wizardry he lends, And to the care of lathe and loom His secret he commends.
In hues and forms and cadences New beauty he instills, A brother by the right of craft To Michael of the hills.
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