God is at the anvil, beating out the sun;

Where the molten metal spills,

At His forge among the hills

He has hammered out the glory of a day that’s done.

God is at the anvil, welding golden bars;

In the scarlet-streaming flame

He is fashioning a frame

For the shimmering silver beauty of the evening stars.

-Lew Sarett

I was in the 7th and 8th grade when I really fell in love with poetry. One thing that triggered this was a research paper I wrote on American literature in the 7th grade, and then the A Beka reader, Themes in Literature, that we used in the 8th grade. I loved that reader. The stories were fascinating and the poetry was outstanding, with lots of imagery.

I discovered the above poem, “God is at the Anvil”, in the 8th grade, and I remember savoring the way the words formed the image of a sunset in my mind. Later, it was in another reader (I love old readers) that I found another of Lew Sarett’s poems called “Wolf Cry”, but it wasn’t until tonight actually that I realized that both poems were written by the same author. I love the way that Lew Sarett uses a minimum of words to paint his pictures. I don’t know about you, but when I read “Wolf Cry”, I am there in an Arctic forest under a full moon, aching with the loneliness of the wild and thrilling with adventure.

Wolf Cry

The Arctic moon hangs overhead;

The wide white silence lies below.

A starveling pine stands lone and gaunt,

Black-penciled on the snow.

Weird as the moan of sobbing winds,

A lone long call floats up from the trail;

And the naked soul of the frozen North

Trembles in that wail.

-Lew Sarett

Image by RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ from Pixabay