OH, to be a wonder-child And read the cipher of the wild! A starry-splintered alphabet In the ancient rocks is set, Spelling, if one held the key, All creation's history. Cryptic messages I trace Etched on many a flower-face; Graven symbols score the pines, The birches wear mysterious signs -- Perhaps the wistful diary Of the Dryad in her tree. On the open page of snow Curious hieroglyphics show, Dots and dashes, twist and thrust, Carven in the crystal crust; Marks of furred and feathered things With furtive feet or startled wings -- Comic secrets of the dark, Silent tragedy and stark. Ciphers, ciphers everywhere, In the sky, the wave, the air! On the faces that one meets Adrift upon the eddying streets; On the near and dear, that change With lines inscrutable and strange -- Palimpsests that time has wrought With the signs of hidden thought, Dreams unguessed and griefs unsaid, Passionate yearning unbetrayed. Ah, could Love but find and own Nature's old Rosetta Stone! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OWL AGAINST ROBIN by SIDNEY LANIER SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: WILLIAM JONES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO ROSAMONDE: A BALADE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER ON THE DEATH OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN by PHILIP FRENEAU EPIGRAMS: BOOK I, 1 by MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM by EDGAR ALLAN POE |