CIPHERS
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!