His Gifts to Us Requite

The butterfly asleep in its cocoon

Amid the clamorous acts of humankind,

The white narcissus gazing at the moon,

Slowly my path through miracle I find

And solace in the burning of the day.

The fragrance of the lilacs slakes my thirst

For joy on the unfathomable way

And beauty on which our human souls were nursed.

Growing things in wise simplicity

Follow their progenitor the sun

And we who seek a distant destiny

Knowing that we hardly have begun

The work for which we came, to divinise

These transient mortal forms for God's delight,

Marry earth to heaven's vaster skies,

Make all divine, His gifts to us requite.