Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)
O Earth, Sufficing All our Needs
1O earth, sufficing all our needs, O you
2With room for body and for spirit too,
3 How patient while your children vex their souls
4Devising alien heavens beyond your blue!
5Dear dwelling of the immortal and unseen,
6How obstinate in my blindness have I been,
7 Not comprehending what your tender calls,
8Veiled promises and reassurance, mean.
9Not far and cold the way that they have gone
10Who through your sundering darkness have withdrawn;
11 Almost within our hand-reach they remain
12Who pass beyond the sequence of the dawn.
13Not far and strange the Heaven, but very near,
14Your children's hearts unknowingly hold dear.
15 At times we almost catch the door swung wide.
16An unforgotten voice almost we hear.
17I am the heir of Heaven -- and you are just.
18You, you alone I know -- and you I trust.
19 I have sought God beyond His farthest star --
20But here I find Him, in your quickening dust.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 89. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
March
1907
Publication date note: Craftsman Magazine (March 1907).
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3
Composition date:
1905
-
1906
Rhyme: aabb
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