HOPES FRUITION

In the muck and slime of that ancient time,

    When earth from chaos hurled

Took shape and form and rode the storm

    Through countless eons whirled,

On its crumbling crust of cosmic dust

    I crawled a created thing;

A creature vast from the black ooze cast,

    Beyond all imagining,

And my eyeless face searched the moonless space,

    Though the voice of my woe was dumb,

And I loathsome sprawled, or all lonesome crawled,

    And waited for you to come ;

But you came not near, and for very fear

    Of the lonesome vast profound,

I died, and sank in the noisome dank,

    While Time resumed his round.

Till the ages vast from their dark womb cast

    Me again upon the earth;

From my hooded eyes I beheld arise

    The sun, and the season's birth ;

And I viewed my length and essayed my strength

    In the garish light of day,

With the shadow vast my huge bulk cast

    I gamboled about in play.

When the day was fled, and my shadow dead,

    I whimpered for what I knew

Was still due to me from my destiny,

    But the ages brought not you;

And for you I wept tin my great life crept

    From very longing away,

And my bones were lost where the ages tossed

    Them in mesozoic clay.

Through creations strange down the grooves of

        change

    I have searched for you afar,

In the, deep green sea I have sought for thee,

    Have ranged through ambient air;

In reincarnations and transformations

    By the sacred river's brink,

'Neath the Sphinx's smile by the winding Nile

    Where ships of the desert drink.

From the primal slime of the birth of Time,

    When my sobbing, pulsing breath

Moaned to my heart for my other part

    Till the longing brought me death;

Now my earth-chained soul draws near the goal

    Whose winning shall give me thee,

And the light divine of your eyes shall shine

    Reward to my constancy.

Where the lilac's bloom wafts its sweet perfume

    Through the twilight's purple shine,

At your timid feet I shall kneel, my sweet,

    Shall clasp you and call you mine;

In the joyous bliss of a clinging kiss

    Our souls in a swift transition

Shall become as one, and, their questing done,

    Shall attain Hope's sweet fruition.

    Sing the South Table of Contents