Blight
Give
me
truths,
For
I
am
weary
of
the
surfaces,
And
die
of
inanition.
If
I
knew
Only
the
herbs
and
simples
of
the
wood,
Rue,
cinquefoil,
gill,
vervain,
and
pimpernel,
Blue-vetch,
and
trillium,
hawkweed,
sassafras,
Milkweeds,
and
murky
brakes,
quaint
pipes
and
sundew,
And
rare
and
virtuous
roots,
which
in
these
woods
Draw
untold
juices
from
the
common
earth,
Untold,
unknown,
and
I
could
surely
spell
Their
fragrance,
and
their
chemistry
apply
By
sweet
affinities
to
human
flesh,
Driving
the
foe
and
stablishing
the
friend,—
O
that
were
much,
and
I
could
be
a
part
Of
the
round
day,
related
to
the
sun,
And
planted
world,
and
full
executor
Of
their
imperfect
functions.
But
these
young
scholars
who
invade
our
hills,
Bold
as
the
engineer
who
fells
the
wood,
And
travelling
often
in
the
cut
he
makes,
Love
not
the
flower
they
pluck,
and
know
it
not,
And
all
their
botany
is
Latin
names.
The
old
men
studied
magic
in
the
flower,
And
human
fortunes
in
astronomy,
And
an
omnipotence
in
chemistry,
Preferring
things
to
names,
for
these
were
men,
Were
unitarians
of
the
united
world,
And
wheresoever
their
clear
eyebeams
fell,
They
caught
the
footsteps
of
the
SAME.
Our
eyes
Are
armed,
but
we
are
strangers
to
the
stars,
And
strangers
to
the
mystic
beast
and
bird,
And
strangers
to
the
plant
and
to
the
mine;
The
injured
elements
say,
Not
in
us;
And
night
and
day,
ocean
and
continent,
Fire,
plant,
and
mineral
say,
Not
in
us,
And
haughtily
return
us
stare
for
stare.
For
we
invade
them
impiously
for
gain,
We
devastate
them
unreligiously,
And
coldly
ask
their
pottage,
not
their
love,
Therefore
they
shove
us
from
them,
yield
to
us
Only
what
to
our
griping
toil
is
due;
But
the
sweet
affluence
of
love
and
song,
The
rich
results
of
the
divine
consents
Of
man
and
earth,
of
world
beloved
and
lover,
The
nectar
and
ambrosia
are
withheld;
And
in
the
midst
of
spoils
and
slaves,
we
thieves
And
pirates
of
the
universe,
shut
out
Daily
to
a
more
thin
and
outward
rind,
Turn
pale
and
starve.
Therefore
to
our
sick
eyes,
The
stunted
trees
look
sick,
the
summer
short,
Clouds
shade
the
sun,
which
will
not
tan
our
hay.
And
nothing
thrives
to
reach
its
natural
term,
And
life,
shorn
of
its
venerable
length,
Even
at
its
greatest
space,
is
a
defeat,
And
dies
in
anger
that
it
was
a
dupe,
And,
in
its
highest
noon
and
wantonness,
Is
early
frugal
like
a
beggar's
child:
With
most
unhandsome
calculation
taught,
Even
in
the
hot
pursuit
of
the
best
aims
And
prizes
of
ambition,
checks
its
hand,
Like
Alpine
cataracts,
frozen
as
they
leaped,
Chilled
with
a
miserly
comparison
Of
the
toy's
purchase
with
the
length
of
life.
