Louise Ayres Garnett. The Prodigal. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Prodigal

By Louise Ayres Garnett


From “Songs of Silence” GOD has such a splendid way
Of launching his unchallenged yea:

Of giving sphery grapes their sheen;
Of painting trees and grasses green;

Of crooning April rains that we	5
May wash us in simplicity;

Of swinging little smiling moons
Beyond the reach of noisy noons;

Of storing in the honey bee
The whole of life’s epitome.	10

God has such a splendid way
Of tempting beauty out of clay,

And from the scattered dusts that sleep
Summoning men who laugh and weep;

And, by and by, of letting death	15
Draw into space our thread of breath.