A Fear

O Mother Earth, I have a fear
Which I would tell to thee--
Softly and gently in thine ear
When the moon and we are three.

Thy grass and flowers are beautiful;
Among thy trees I hide;
And underneath the moonlight cool
Thy sea looks broad and wide;

But this I fear--lest thou shouldst grow
To me so small and strange,
So distant I should never know
On thee a shade of change,

Although great earthquakes should uplift
Deep mountains from their base,
And thy continual motion shift
The lands upon thy face;--

The grass, the flowers, the dews that lie
Upon them as before--
Driven upwards evermore, lest I
Should love these things no more.

Even now thou dimly hast a place
In deep star galaxies!
And I, driven ever on through space,
Have lost thee in the skies!