IF green the corn and burning the volcano,

Though snowclad, buried under rocks of ice,

Why shall the heart not love and burn in waving

Expectant green, or rising flames of hot

Enthusiasm, or burst into a torrent

Of wrath, though snow the summit long hath crowned?

Behold! The field is green, the seed has risen

That thou hast thrown into these aching furrows,

Once ploughed by Destiny, and sown with sorrow

And watered with the wells of tears, that dropped

Upon each grain and flowed through all the furrows.

They see the snow upon thine head, but not

The corn and not the threat'ning furnace of

Thy soul. They think it is extinct, they hope

Thou hast forgotten, that the gentle warmth

They feel is sunshine, not the stormy fire,

That cannot cease to burn: for it remembers.