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 light infolds thy hills with golden rays, / Filling with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree, / What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee, / That once again, in these dark, dreadful days, / Breaks forth in trembling rage, 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, / Behold the Son of God in human love!
Tertius and Henry van Dyke.