| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Autochthon |
| | | Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (1860–1943) |
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| I AM the spirit astir | |
| To swell the grain, | |
| When fruitful suns confer | |
| With laboring rain; | |
| I am the life that thrills | 5 |
| In branch and bloom; | |
| I am the patience of abiding hills, | |
| The promise masked in doom. | |
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| When the sombre lands are wrung, | |
| And storms are out, | 10 |
| And giant woods give tongue, | |
| I am the shout; | |
| And when the earth would sleep, | |
| Wrapped in her snows, | |
| I am the infinite gleam of eyes that keep | 15 |
| The post of her repose. | |
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| I am the hush of calm, | |
| I am the speed, | |
| The flood-tide’s triumphing psalm, | |
| The marsh-pool’s heed; | 20 |
| I work in the rocking roar | |
| Where cataracts fall; | |
| I flash in the prismy fire that dances o’er | |
| The dew’s ephemeral ball. | |
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| I am the voice of wind | 25 |
| And wave and tree, | |
| Of stern desires and blind, | |
| Of strength to be; | |
| I am the cry by night | |
| At point of dawn, | 30 |
| The summoning bugle from the unseen height, | |
| In cloud and doubt withdrawn. | |
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| I am the strife that shapes | |
| The stature of man, | |
| The pang no hero escapes, | 35 |
| The blessing, the ban; | |
| I am the hammer that moulds | |
| The iron of our race, | |
| The omen of God in our blood that a people beholds, | |
| The foreknowledge veiled in our face. | 40 |
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