O EARTH, SUFFICING ALL OUR NEEDS

O EARTH, sufficing all our needs, O you
With room for body and for spirit too,
   How patient while your children vex their souls
Devising alien heavens beyond your blue!

Dear dwelling of the immortal and unseen,

How obstinate in my blindness have I been,
   Not comprehending what your tender calls,
Veiled promises and re-assurance, mean.

Not far and cold the way that they have gone
Who through your sundering darkness have withdrawn;

   Almost within our hand-reach they remain
Who pass beyond the sequence of the dawn.

Not far and strange the Heaven, but very near,
Your children’s hearts unknowingly hold dear.
   At times we almost catch the door swung wide.

An unforgotten voice almost we hear.I am the heir of

Heaven—and you are just.
You, you alone I know—and you I trust.
   I have sought God beyond His farthest star—
But here I find Him, in your quickening dust.