Truly He Hath A Sweet Bed

Brown earth, sun-soaked,
    Beneath his head
    And over the quiet limbs....
    Through time unreckoned
    Lay this brown earth for him. Now is he come.
    Truly he hath a sweet bed.

    The perfume shed
    From invisible gardens is chaliced by kindly airs
    And carried for welcome to the stranger.
    Long seasons ere he came, this wilderness
    They habited.

    They, and the mist of stars
    Down-spread
    About him as a hush of vespering birds.
    They, and the sun, the moon:
    Naught now denies him the moon's coming,
    Nor the morning trail of gold,
    The luminous print of evening, red
    At the sun's tread.

    The brown earth holds him.
    The stars and little winds, the friendly moon
    And sun attend in turn his rest.
    They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious,
    And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger,
    His kinship, knew them once but blindly
    In thoughts unsaid,
    As a dream that fled.

    So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons.
    So is his sleep by them for ever companioned.
    ...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing
    And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter
    When their dancing is sped.

    Truly he hath a sweet bed.