Celebrating Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! I'd like to share a poem today by Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), who I had to read quite a lot of in university. I appreciate him much more now. Nature seemed to influence many of his works; one of his best known poems is entitled Snow (how suitably Canadian!) and was used as the lyric for a beautiful song by Loreena McKennit, another Canadian artist.



Today's poem celebrates the beauty of the world, and the realization which nature's power brings us to: we are all part of the same world. Enjoy!











Voices of Earth

We have not heard the music of the spheres,
The song of star to star, but there are sounds
More deep than human joy and human tears,
That Nature uses in her common rounds;
The fall of streams, the cry of winds that strain
The oak, the roaring of the sea's surge, might
Of thunder breaking afar off, or rain
That falls by minutes in the summer night.
These are the voices of earth's secret soul,
Uttering the mystery from which she came.
To him who hears them grief beyond control,
Or joy inscrutable without a name,
Wakes in his heart thoughts bedded there, impearled,
Before the birth and making of the world.

Archibald Lampman