by Ernest L. Norman

How well he speaks, when with his tongue
he speaks the words that all men understand
And words like knights, that joust
our fancied pleasures
Or merrily lead us down a glade
A winding way far up the hill where
sunshine meets the earth
And wedded there the songs of birds ~
the wedding march.

Our words, they too are fairy things
with gossamer wings
A joy to find a nectared cup – ambrosia
deep within our spritely way
Is but a change that finds us anywhere
from dawn to dusk with words
Yield not to mighty powers wielded
by some clashing sword.

Nor can our words be stayed by Heaven’s wrath
The fury of a lashing storm from out the skies
Will meet us with its challenge,
and in the dying rain
We’ll wing again a poem of victory.

Yes, words can be as tranquil as a lake
which sleeps unruffled
Held close by mountain arms ~
and wanton is the breeze,
which dares disturb this rest
For who can say the blue within its depths
is but a stolen thing
And borrowed from a cloudless sky
A word can then begin and seal a lover’s kiss
A word unspoken ‘oft borne on wings of tho’t,
Brings brightness from despair.

A sigh, ‘tho not a word, and wordless as it is
Becomes a sermon eloquent more than all things said.
And thus it is from out the multitudes of things
Which make the earth, each way of life
Each one a landscape all its own.

The rustling leaves, the sighing breeze,
the chirp of fledglings in their nest
The silence of the rocky hills,
soft falling snow, will speak again
When comes the Spring and sunlight sets it free
This stillness then becomes the shouting brook,
Oh words, and wordless things – a countless
thousand babbling cadent tongues.

Excerpt from The Anthenium