AUTOCHTHON
Reading edition
I
I am the spirit astir To swell the grain When fruitful suns confer With labouring rain; I am the life that thrills In branch and bloom; I am the patience of abiding hills, The promise masked in doom.
II
When the sombre lands are wrung, And storms are out, And giant woods give tongue, I am the shout; And when the earth would sleep, Wrapped in her snows, I am the infinite gleam of eyes that keep The post of her repose.
III
I am the hush of calm, I am the speed, The flood-tide’s triumphing psalm, The marsh-pool’s heed; I work in the rocking roar Where cataracts fall; I flash in the prismy fire that dances o’er The dew’s ephemeral ball.
IV
I am the voice of wind And wave and tree, Of stern desires and blind, Of strength to be; I am the cry by night At point of dawn, The summoning bugle from the unseen height, In cloud and doubt withdrawn.
V
I am the strife that shapes The stature of man, The pang no hero escapes, The blessing, the ban; I am the hammer that moulds The iron of our race, The omen of God in our blood that a people beholds, The foreknowledge veiled in our face.