Unchanged Poem by Annie Adams Fields

ONCE men could walk these roads and hear no sound
Save the sad ocean beating on the shore,
Or song of birds who wait not on the roar
Of waters wrestling with their rocky bound;
The iris bloomed unseen beside the pool,
The morning rose unmarked, the evening fell
On the broad pastures, and none came to tell
Other than tales of love in the shadows cool.
Now with the dawn the cowherd on his way,
The mason and the builder with their tools,
Meet and salute, take counsel of the rules
To be observed in laboring through the day.
Perchance they never think to hear the voice
That calls forever, has forever called,
And shall forever when these ears are palled;
Yet for one listener, though the eyes grow dim,
And though the pleasant places are destroyed,
And nooks unveiled whence music was decoyed,
The great Unchanged still smiles and waits for him.