THE CREATOR

He takes the scent of the softening ground
Where the first green blade pricks through,
He takes the reddening maple bough
A-slant against the blue,
He takes the cheer in the robin's song
And the flash of the blue-bird's wing,
The joy of prisoned things set free,
And of these He makes the Spring.

He takes the sheen of the waving wheat
Where the slow cloud-shadows pass,
He takes the brook's soft rippling tune
And the daisied meadows grass,
He takes the swish of the mower's scythe
In the noontide's hot, white glare,
The joy of labor and growing things,
And makes the Summer fair.

He takes the sound of the dropping nuts
And the scent of the wine-sweet air
In the twilight time of the year's long day,
When the spent Earth kneels in prayer,
He takes a thousand varied hues
Aglow in an opal haze,
The joy of the harvest gathered in,
And makes the Autumn days.

He takes the peace of the snowy fields,
Asleep 'neath the clear, cold moon,
He takes the grace of the leafless trees
That sway to the wind's wild rune,
The frost-made lace on the window pane,
The whirl of the starry flakes,
The joy of the rest when toil is done,
And the quiet Winter makes.

He takes the years,--the old, the new,
With their changing scenes and brief,
The close-shut bud and the fruiting bough,
Flower and fading leaf,
Grace and glory and lack and loss,
The song, the sigh, the strife,
The joy of hope and the hope fulfilled,
And makes of the years a life.

He takes our lives and the sum of them
His will and the will of man,
Evil and good and dream and deed,
His purpose and our plan,
The thwarted lives and the crippled lives
And the things that give them worth,
The joy of life and the pain of life,
And makes the Heavens and Earth.
---Annie Johnson Flint