Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,
With the wonderful water round you curled,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast,
World, you are beautifully drest.
The wonderful air is over me,
And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree
It walks on the water, and whirls the
mills,
And talks to itself on the top of the
hills.
You friendly Earth, how far do you go,
With the wheat-fields that nod and the
rivers that flow,
With cities and gardens, and cliffs and
isles,
And people upon you for thousands of miles?
Ah! you are so great, and I am so small,
I hardly can think of you, World, at all;
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper within me seemed to say,
“You are more than the Earth, though
you are such a dot!
You can love and think, and the Earth
cannot!”
William Brighty Rands.