O fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows...

By Anne Whitney

O fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows!
And mute appeal from its inhuman ways,
Its iron judgments and its misspent praise,
To the appreciation sweet that glows
In heaven's old smiling eye! O slowly grows
Our human thought; and freedom long delays,
Love in the shade fulfilling weary days,
Ere her great child is born! No wasting throes
Foretell thy being to the universe!
It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings
Below our life, blessing, and care and curse,
Even at the very root and core of things:
And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight,
And warbled hint of something back of sight.