| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The World: A Child’s Song | | By William Brighty Rands (1823–1882) |
| | | GREAT, wide, beautiful, wonderful World! | |
| With the wonderful water round you curl’d, | |
| And the wonderful grass upon your breast— | |
| World, you are beautifully drest. | |
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| The wonderful air is over me, | 5 |
| And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree; | |
| It walks on the water, and whirls the mills, | |
| And talks to itself on the tops of the hills. | |
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| You friendly Earth! how far do you go, | |
| With the wheatfields that nod, and the rivers that flow, | 10 |
| With cities and gardens and cliffs and isles, | |
| And people upon you for thousands of miles? | |
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| Ah, you are so great, and I am so small, | |
| I tremble to think of you, World, at all! | |
| And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, | 15 |
| A whisper inside me seem’d to say— | |
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| ‘You are more than the Earth, tho’ you are such a dot: | |
| You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!’ | | | | |
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