William Herbert Carruth

Each in His Own Tongue

A FIRE-MIST and a planet,
    A crystal and a cell, 
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
    And caves where the cave-men dwell; 
Then a sense of law and beauty
    And a face turned from the clod -- 
Some call it Evolution,
    And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,
    The infinite, tender sky, 
The ripe rich tint of the cornfileds,
    And the wild geese sailing high -- 
And all over upland and lowland
    The charm of the golden-rod -- 
Some of us call it Autumn
    And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
    When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings
    Come welling and surging in -- 
Come from the mystic ocean,
    Whose rim no foot has trod, -- 
Some of us call it Longing,
    And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,
    A mother starved for her brood, 
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
    And Jesus on the rood; 
And millions who, humble and nameless,
    The straight, hard pathway plod, -- 
Some call it Consecration,
    And others call it God.