I AM the Moses: I the mouth of God. God speaking by me, I must choose His mode. I understand how water stratifies: Smiting, I change the balance of its force. I recognize one element is all things, So of bland dew blend my primeval food, By morn and eve fulfil form's power to change. This is my chisel, stylus of the God -- My hammer this: my hammer is God's mind. I rule a naughty people and ignorant By the wise wilful power dictated in me. They watched me mount the mist with steps like threats; When the mist took me they were still as blindness, Uneasy and strained because I might return. When man conceives his nature, his relation To water, air, proud beasts, and fruiting trees, No law can hold him but the law he makes; His heart's reluctant restless clear perception Only is simple and hard, is not avoided. This is my freedom; this I figure as God To guide a folk who do not free themselves. A layer of stone can take law's burden, too, Shew forth my way most definitely and coldly: Here in height's silence like my loneliness I strike the steel to unavoidable things. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OCTAVES: 21 by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE RIGHT TO GRIEF by CARL SANDBURG THE BLISSFUL DAY by ROBERT BURNS NAPEOLON'S FAREWELL; FROM THE FRENCH by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST by RUDYARD KIPLING TO THE DRIVING CLOUD by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE WEST WIND by JOHN MASEFIELD FIRST FIG by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE TENT ON THE BEACH: 10. THE PALATINE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |