As riders check their restive steeds,
Let not thy passions run off wild,
To dash thee under brutal hooves—

Rage not at those who rage at thee;

Think of no harm to man or beast;

Forbear harsh words, speak ill of none;

Offend no one, by painful deeds;

Accurse no one, but blessings give.

Injure no one, though you are stung;

Embrace us all, we’re Nature’s kin.

Goddess? Nature personified, they say,
Gloating, as the world falls in disarray.

Appreciate what she has done for us!
And all with no intent, for she just “does,”
Giving no thought to plans beneficent;
Yet Moses’ God, with mind omniscient,
Could plan to cure His froward children’s ill
With seven angels, all but a few to kill.

Omniscient Gods alone expect belief
While drenching all around in abject grief,
Demanding thankful hymns as they destroy,
And making sins of what we should enjoy.
The Goddess, though, is neutral to our fate
And evolved love that we might procreate.

There are no sins, except ingratitude
Our life is but too brief an interlude,
And using it to harm our virgin earth,
The Goddess’ womb from which we had our birth.

In this, our certain life, they’re discontent,
And pray in selfish hope and sentiment
To enjoy everlasting life elsewhere
(As tangible as any wish or prayer
Which is to say, it lives within a head
And disappears for good when one is dead).

Who can, when dead, expose the priestly lie?
For life departs us all when once we die,
A snowflake gem we catch upon our sleeve
But melts away, whatever we believe.

Appreciate this gem while She allows,
And look with joy on Nature’s Golden Boughs.
And saw no more upon the bough you sit,
For when you fall Nature won’t care a bit.

Yet Her kind breast we suck in infant needs;
Hers is the womb from which all life proceeds;
And, in Her universe, who are we?
Nothing but plankton in Her endless sea;
No End-of-all-that-is, a polyp’s bud
Upon an endless reef of bad and good.

Our lives will tell which of the two we chose,
Whether awake or whether comatose.
The Patriarch’s legend measures our worth;
Heaven or Hell is what we make the earth.
“They” make it Hell and pray for salvation;
Thank God! they cry, For Christianization!

Not for us harmful and selfish fantasies:
Goddess, we love your earth, your sky, your trees.
We dance and chant our awe of Nature’s troves
’Neath vaults of stars and moon, in silent groves,
Then small we feel in Your infinity,
Our arrogance becomes humility,
For then we stop and know that blest are we
With Nature’s awesome gifts, and Blest is She!

Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside,
Don’t crush that helpless worm!
The shape thy wayward looks deride
A Goddess took to form.

The Goddess, Queen of all that is,
From whom thy being flowed,
A bit of “sui generis”
Upon that worm bestowed.

The sun, the moon, the stars, She made
For all of life to see,
And spread o’er earth the grassy blade
For worms as well as thee.

Let them enjoy their lowly day—
Though undemonstrative.
No! do not lightly take away
Life that thou cannot give.
Thomas Gisborne

Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow,
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.

Sand strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep,
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where all the sea beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground,
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine,
Where the great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye.

Once she sat with you and me
On a red-gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the young one sat on her knee.
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well…
Then down swung the sound of the far-off bell;
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far off sound of a devil’s bell.

The hoarse wind blows colder,
Lights shine in the town;
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.

By threat of the cross,
Imprisoned is she;
Cut off from her children,
The queen of the sea.

We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring tides are low,
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom,
Up the still glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze from the sand-hills
At the white sleeping town,
At the church she’s a captive—
A world upside-down.

By threat of the cross,
Imprisoned is she;
Desolate and weeping,
The queen of the sea.
Abbreviated and adapted from Matthew Arnold

A garden is a lovely thing. I know!
I’ll go,
Grab a hoe,
Dig a row,
Seeds sow,
Waters flow,
Flowers grow,
Just so.
Nature’s rule!
And yet too oft, those who’ll
Dig the sod
And Turn the clod
Say, “’Tis all the work of God.”
Not so! For while I toil
I have a sign.
The Goddess hums her tune in mine.
Adapted from T E Brown

Death is a clean bold word with no second meaning.
Death means an end. By sight, by touch, temperature we know.
Do not insult this strong word with a weak evasion
And say, ’He has gone on’—’He passed away’—’He sleeps.’

Speak not of the body and its lively grace
As paltry things that never mattered after all,
Creative hands and giving hands, hands calloused and deformed
As being nothing now but broken tools.

Or if you must believe that when the light went out
Of eyes you loved and they stared back and told you nothing,
For that was all that could be told forever,
Salute Death. He demands you shall attain
Your fullest strength of honesty and courage.
You shall not bear your sorrow’s weight upon a crutch of words,
You will stand straight, nor say your lover, friend, your child
Has gone as though he’d wandered off somewhere,
But speak with dignity and say, ’He died.’
Rebecca Richmond

Thou wilt not find, O Gilgamesh,
That which thou seek’st. Forego thy quest!
Just take thy fill of meat and beer,
And day and night be of good cheer;
Spoil not a day with thoughts of woe,
But dance and play where e’er ye go.
Then bow thy head, proud Gilgamesh,
And bathe thyself in water fresh,
And wash thyself and don clean clothes,
Thy spouse to take unto thy hose;
Love well the child which takes your hand,
For then, proud man, th’art merely sand.

To every thing there is a season,
A time to every purpose on earth,
A time of birth and a time of death,
A time to plant and a time to pluck,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to break and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time for children to go and a time for them to return,
A time to hug and a time to shun,
A time to find and a time to lose,
A time to keep and a time to cast out,
A time to rend and a time to sew,
A time for silence and a time for speech,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.

Know this, you that ravage the earth!
Tell your own what we have told our own.
The earth is your mother, pray don’t forget;
What will befall the earth, befalls her children too;
When she falls ill, her children starve.
Like brothers of the blood, all things are one,
When the blood of the fox falls on the soil,
Less blood flows in your veins, for all is one;
We do not own the earth, the earth owns us.
Those who spit on the ground, spit on themselves.
Did you forget, the earth is your mother?
What will befall the earth, befalls her children too.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are its threads, no more.
When we destroy the web, we too must die.

My heart is dusty as a desert,
Dust do’th settle on a despairing heart;
My mind is arid and dry,
Parched for want of the dew of selfless thoughts;
A thick sediment is laying on my body,
My struggles are feeble, my pores are choked.
I lie encased in the fetid filth of unbounded greed,
Yet my concern empowers me.
I must bathe in the fresh fountains of life
And breathe the pure air of truth
To inspire the human soul and heal this earth,
Else the recompense of greed shall be filth,
And the reward of dust shall be dust.

Awake from sleep, and joyful rise,
To hear the morning seagull’s cries,
Arise to dawn and with the sun
We’ll rest again when truth is done.

We’ll seek the truth and take no rest
To set our world among the best.
Let’s waste no time, it goes too fast,
In making sure the old God’s past.

Ignoring priests, for truth they smear,
In all we do we’ll be sincere
Then Nature will her thoughts reveal
To our enquiring questions’ zeal.

And as we learn and get to know,
As fears and superstitions go,
We’ll see the world in clearer light
When dawn dissolves the dark age night.

O Magna Mater, Queen of Truth
Guide us to thy Gnostic proof,
Great Mother, evolution’s light,
Whose dawn shall break the dark age night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.

Nature my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd’s care;
Her presence shall my wants supply,
And guide me with a watchful eye;
My noonday walks She shall attend,
And all my midnight fears forfend.

When in the humid swamp I faint,
Or in the thirsty deserts pant,
In fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary, wandering steps She leads,
Where peaceful rivers soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.

Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crowned,
And streams shall murmur all around.

Though in the paths of death I tred
Whose unknown fears I’m taught to dread,
My steadfast heart shall love thee still,
For thou, Goddess, do me no ill,
But show, from selfless sacrifice,
New life shall bless thy paradise.

Adapted from Joseph Addison