From 50 years ago

‘WITH A HOPE TO LOOK FORWARD TO’ (Romans 7:21)

ACROSS THE CENTURIES we see them pass –
A voiceless, mournful, meekly patient throng –
Nature’s sad outcasts, from the day – alas –
That broke the harmony of Eden’s song.
The gentle asses, beaten unto death;
Tiny caged larks, dashing against the bars –
The pale ghosts drift, we feel the mournful breath,
Catch the low moon that rises to the stars.
The tender nature-souls that knew not joys,
Brief lives, that dragged in weary toilsome days,
Crushed by the greed that humble peace destroys –
Grey ghosts, through pain-drenched years they go their ways.
‘The spirit of the beast’, the nature-soul,
To Beatific Vision ne’er may rise;
Yet, as the timeless aeons onward roll,
Hath God for these New Earth, and sunny skies?
In the cold Stable cattle’s warm, sweet breath
As incense rose; on creatures oft he smiled
In childlike glee in homely Nazareth;
They came around Him in the desert wild.
Hath He in store green pastures, crystal springs,
And forest glades, within His boundless space,
Where lamb and lion play and throstle sings,
And God reveals to them His human face?