How Like the Wind

How like the wind, the seeds of love in man. Though mountains crack and tumble to the sea And all the earth, in war’s finality, Burns in one swift horizon for Time to scan, Through the dark hole where Everest leaves the sky, Over the valleys where stood the Apennines, A lonely seed of roses or of pines Will catch in the wind’s fingers moving by, And so be carried like a trinket there, Clasped from the thieves of lightning and of rain Until some secret hour when there shall rise Out of the sea some continent strange and bare, And on its shores that lift in bright surprise, Roses or pines, like love, shall blossom again.