Martha Foote Crow. Religion. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

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

Religion

By Martha Foote Crow


IN a far olden time
On the marge of some era Devonian,
When budding breezes began to sweep
The tops of the fern-tree fronds,
The little wild people clinging along the roots	5
Quivered with apprehension.
By and by they dared to look up.
“There is a Something there,” they said.
“It is God,” they cried,
And hid themselves.	10

By and by a mole crept along
And stirred the grass.
“It is God,” the people said,
And shrank away terrified.

After some eons,	15
One who was akin to prophets whispered,
“Let us make for ourselves an image of God
Like a mole.”
And they did so.

They made him like a cat, like an ox, like a serpent.	20
They devised a flying horse, a grifon, a dragon.
They imagined winged angels,
Guardian angels,
Lost angels.
“These are gods and part-gods,” they said;	25
“They live on a Hill in the Sky
On the top of the Great Mountain.
Sometime they will come down
And talk with us.”

Time went on and I was born.	30
And I, too, heard a mystic breathing
Trembling delicately among the tree-tops.
I listened in a trance. And I said, “It is God!”
A little blind mole crept by my feet.
“It is the gentle touch of God,” I cried in ecstasy.	35
But when I looked into your god-like eyes, my friend,
My heart almost stopped beating in its joy.
“Now do I verily see God!” I exulted.