To The Dwellers In Houses Poem by Annie Adams Fields

O SINGERS who tell
Of the glory of light, the music of leaves, the voice of the sea;
And poets who chant of the footstep untrammelled and buoyant and free!
The truth is half told!
And the wilderness stands,
Undiscovered and bold.

Forever inviting!
A garden unmeasured, a sweetness unlearned, a music unframed;
A lamp to the spirit, a force to the soul, a power untamed.
Why cleanse we and eat,
Why slumber and drink,
Yet hunger for meat?

Take thine own! and rejoice
In the shade of the oak, in beauty of summer, in fruit of the vine;
With the birth of the lily, the death of the rose, the strength of the pine;
Too rich to rehearse!
Though the days were renewed,
And the might of a verse.

Not alone, not alone,
Of these would I sing; the beauty we love, the Love that endures;
But the waning of days, the falling of leaves, and the power that cures;
O silence! O day!
Send thy children abroad,
Come winter, come May!

Thou blue bending roof!
We would live, let us live, in the light of the sky!
Here is truth and constancy, here is power that cannot die!
Open, O nature, thine heart
To these imprisoned ones,
And tell them whose voice thou art!