O Earth, Sufficing All our Needs
O Earth, Sufficing All our Needs
Original Text
Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 89. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
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10Who through your sundering darkness have withdrawn;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.
Publication Start Year
1907
Publication Notes
Craftsman Magazine (March 1907).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme