The Star-Treader and Other Poems

Alas! that we are deaf and blind

To meanings all about us hid!

What secrets lurk the woods amid?

What prophecies are on the wind?

What tidings do the billows bring

And cry in vain upon the strand?

If we might only understand

The brooklet's cryptic murmuring!

The tongues of earth and air are strange.

And yet (who knows?) one little word

Learned from the language of the bird

Might make us lords of Fate and Change!