To Mother

Our Lives Are Joined

The pain and sorrow of all living things

Thou couldst contain, by love transmute to bliss

And all our anguished human sufferings

To rapture lift and touch with Godhead's kiss.

What prayer may issue from my lips unheard

By Thee before the thought was born within,

How shall I phrase the halting rhyme or word

Or lines that have not Thee for origin?

O Light that I have lived to see and love

Pure within its burning altar-home

To Thee my spirit cries, my longings move

And to Thy call my soul replies, "I come."

The centuries shall mark thy golden tread

Upon this blue resilient mote in space,

Our lives are joined by an invisible thread

And the ever-present beauty of thy face.