| |
| IN a valley, centuries ago, | |
| Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender, | |
| Veining delicate and fibres tender; | |
| Waving when the wind crept down so low. | |
| Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it, | 5 |
| Playful sunbeams darted in and found it, | |
| Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it, | |
| But no foot of man e’er trod that way; | |
| Earth was young, and keeping holiday. | |
| |
| Monster fishes swam the silent main, | 10 |
| Stately forests waved their giant branches, | |
| Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches, | |
| Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain; | |
| Nature revelled in grand mysteries, | |
| But the little fern was not of these, | 15 |
| Did not number with the hills and trees; | |
| Only grew and waved its wild sweet way, | |
| No one came to note it day by day. | |
| |
| Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood, | |
| Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion | 20 |
| Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean; | |
| Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood, | |
| Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay,— | |
| Covered it, and hid it safe away. | |
| O, the long, long centuries since that day! | 25 |
| O, the changes! O, life’s bitter cost, | |
| Since that useless little fern was lost! | |
| |
| Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man | |
| Searching Nature’s secrets, far and deep; | |
| From a fissure in a rocky steep | 30 |
| He withdrew a stone, o’er which there ran | |
| Fairy pencillings, a quaint design, | |
| Veinings, leafage, fibres clear and fine. | |
| And the fern’s life lay in every line! | |
| So, I think, God hides some souls away, | 35 |
| Sweetly to surprise us, the last day. | |
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