TREES, the green trees, rocks, and the wave-washed sands,
You are all here! while, like the summer birds,
Yet how unlike! the soul of man has passed
Out of his perfect form and vanished quite.
Now question we the rocks and ask the trees
To point the way he went and show us where?
To bring us news of him, while we press on,
Spent with our errands in this nether world.
O trees and rocks, alas! and whispering sands,
I think you bear a message! Let me haunt
Your wild, that in the silence I may lose
Nothing of the great secret you have heard,
And fain would tell if man would pause to hear.