Not solitarily in fields we find <br />Earth's secret open, though one page is there; <br />Her plainest, such as children spell, and share <br />With bird and beast; raised letters for the blind. <br />Not where the troubled passions toss the mind, <br />In turbid cities, can the key be bare. <br />It hangs for those who hither thither fare, <br />Close interthreading nature with our kind. <br />They, hearing History speak, of what men were, <br />And have become, are wise. The gain is great <br />In vision and solidity; it lives. <br />Yet at a thought of life apart from her, <br />Solidity and vision lose their state, <br />For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives.<br /><br />George Meredith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/earth-s-secret/
