Mend the World

Come back. Let me give up this climb, these searches

In trackless time and overwhelming space;

Here are tall ghosts that once were elms and birches,

And this small field is a deserted place.

The fern you found will never learn to scatter

Its yield upon the ground that you have left;

The veery's round, high call will turn to chatter;

Sere are these acres, weary and bereft.

Against the skies earth rears its broken scaffold,

Where night, so friendly once, is but a black

Stupendous ruin where the mind is baffled;

And the blind heart cries out its endless lack:

"Come, mend the world! Come back!"