You ask how love can keep the mortal soul

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.