Lovely Is the World

LOVELY is the world today
Swaying on so slight a stem.
Joy as fragile as a sigh
Petaled round its hem.

Man may pluck it if he will,
Man grown clever now to learn
How to snap the stalk with one
Quick, emphatic turn.

MAN is not measure of the earth.
Though he destroy it if he must,
Unnumbered light-years, ether-wise,
Its incandescent dust

Would spell a star to shepherds camped
On hills untutored worlds away
Or guide men sailing wooden barks
Into a candid bay

And on some artless sphere a child
Across millenniums would say
Her wish upon the world we loved
And threw away.