Each in His Own Tongue By William Herbert Carruth

Each in His Own Tongue

By William Herbert Carruth

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.