God shifted sunset through a tree
And so His love came down to me
In colors I could understand.
I never saw an April land
Transfigured so with loveliness
Beneath spring’s tenderest caress,
As shone on cold December air
That instant God was standing there.
–1946, published by David C. Cook Publishing Company
Whoever has descended
To ultimate despair
And risen, knows conviction
No undefeated dare.
Never again will he accept
Final finality.
He understands the uses now,
Of immortality.
–1946, published by David C. Cook Publishing Company
No other acres of the earth I know
Save through one constant window day by day
And season after season. I have seen the slow
Bare beauty of fields, like folded hands that pray
God’s blessing on the sees they shall receive
When all the young insistencies of spring
Stir men once more to hope and believe,
Stir men once more to struggle and to sing,
And seed is sown and nourished in these lands
As dark mother cherishes a child,
And yielded graciously to men’s demands
With quiet acquiescence. And these mild
Strong hands of earth have freed my soul of fear
And made me theirs. My place on earth is here.
–Progressive Farmer, 1945