If green the corn and burning the volcano,
Though snowclad, buried under rocks of ice,
Why shall the heart not love and burn in waving
Expectant green, or rising flames of hot
Enthusiasm, or burst into a torrent
Of wrath, though snow the summit long hath crowned?
Behold! The field is green, the seed has risen
That thou hast thrown into these aching furrows,
Once ploughed by Destiny, and sown with sorrow
And watered with the wells of tears, that dropped
Upon each grain and flowed through all the furrows.
They see the snow upon thine head, but not
The corn and not the threat'ning furnace of
Thy soul. They think it is extinct, they hope
Thou hast forgotten, that the gentle warmth
They feel is sunshine, not the stormy fire,
That cannot cease to burn: for it remembers.