Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The World: A Childs SongWilliam Brighty Rands (18231882)
G
With the wonderful water round you curl’d,
And the wonderful grass upon your breast—
World, you are beautifully drest.
And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree;
It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,
And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.
With the wheatfields that nod, and the rivers that flow,
With cities and gardens and cliffs and isles,
And people upon you for thousands of miles?
I tremble to think of you, World, at all!
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper inside me seem’d to say—
You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!’