Explore "Sicily, December, 1908 (Lyrics, Dramatic and Personal)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea, -- / Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays, / Whose amorous light enfolds thee in warm / rays / That fill with fruit each dark-leaved orange- / tree, -- / What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee? / Behold, again, in these dark, dreadful days, / She trembles with her wrath, and swiftly lays / Thy beauty waste in wreck and agony!
Is Nature, then, a strife of jealous powers, / And man the plaything of unconscious fate? / Not so, my troubled heart! God reigns above / And man is greatest in his darkest hours: / Walking amid the cities desolate, / The Son of God appears in human love.
Tertius and Henry van Dyke, January, 1909.