If Once - To Dudley and Sharlet Warner

7/8/02

If once our hearts could hold eternal spring

Yet bear the beauty of an endless fall,

Know summer as the spirit's flowering,

In winter's silence meet the tranquil All,

If we could winnow truth from falsehood's field,

See evil's face evolving into good,

To some high source our inner darkness yield,

Taste joy and sorrow as an equal food,

If we could calm the restless shores of mind

And bridge with light the gulfs of ignorance,

Approaching Truth the mystic answers find

And God in every seeming play of Chance,

Then would we walk with sinner and with seer,

Untrammelled by the snares of specious fate,

Harmony and oneness drawing near

Embrace Him in the lowly and the great.