Briskly about it, my son! and the greening grass, and the spring stir,
And the stars in their shining shall hail you, the globe in its rolling shall help you.
For, After Ruin, Renewing! so runs the merciful Life-Law:
Out of Destruction, Growth! and a human life that is broken
Can break on, like a fertilised field, into help for a hungry world!
“The bright sea says it again—Look! Under that brightness, blackness,
Slime and wreckage and ooze: yet, deep in the dregs too, service!
Doesn’t the world need divers? There’s sunken treasure to rescue,
Where but in drowning deeps are laid sure harbour foundations?
And pearls, the gentlest of gems, maybe because made with sorrow,
Only the sea has pearls....You and I have been under and down, son!
In the dregs of the world we’ve been—Woe’s me! some stay there and sleep there....
Not out of Touch, even so....but we’ve quick air in our lungs yet
To bring us back to the air and the beautiful shining surface;
We’re for the sun again—and we’ll not have been down for nothing?
12
