To cradle me and feed me with their snows,
And hollowed out the great sea to receive
My overplus of flowing energy:
Blessèd for ever be our Mother Earth.
Only, the mountains that must feed my springs
Year after year and every year with snows
As they have fed innumerable years,
These mountains they are evermore the same,
Rooted and motionless; the solemn heavens
Are evermore the same in stable rest;
The sun and moon and stars that shine on me
Are evermore the same although they move:
I solely, moving ever without pause,
Am evermore the same and not the same;
Pouring myself away into the sea,
And self-renewing from the farthest heights;
Ever-fresh waters streaming down and down,
The one old Nilus constant through their change.
The creatures also whom I breed and feed
Perpetually perish and dissolve,
And other creatures like them take their place,
To perish in their turn and be no more:
My profluent waters perish not from life,
Absorbed into the ever-living sea
Whose life is in their full replenishment.
