Works

From God's all bounteous hand descend
Rare gifts in rich effusion,
And with those gifts no poisons blend,
Nor is their end delusion;
So do not spurn if He bestow
Those forms arrayed in beauty;...

God's grace deserves here to be daily fed
That, thus increased, it might be perfected.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?...

I.

Out, out in the open fields,
Where the great, green book of God,
The book that its wisdom yields
To each soul that is not a clod,
Lies wide for the world to read,...

God's hands are round and smooth, that gifts may fall
Freely from them and hold none back at all.

He writes in characters too grand
For our short sight to understand;
We catch but broken strokes, and try
To fathom all the mystery
Of withered hopes, of death, of life,...

I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat,
And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat;
And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that.
...

God has four keys, which He reserves alone:
The first of rain; the key of hell next known;
With the third key He opes and shuts the womb;
And with the fourth key he unlocks the tomb.

There is no summit you may not attain,
No purpose which you may not yet achieve,
If you will wait serenely and believe
Each seeming loss is but a step toward gain.
...

God measures souls by their capacity
For entertaining his best Angel, Love.
Who loveth most is nearest kin to God,
Who is all Love, or Nothing.

He who sits
And looks out on the palpitating world,...

God measures souls by their capacity
For entertaining his best Angel, Love.
Who loveth most is nearest kin to God,
Who is all Love, or Nothing.
He who sits
And looks out on the palpitating world,...

God's boundless mercy is, to sinful man,
Like to the ever-wealthy ocean:
Which though it sends forth thousand streams, 'tis ne'er
Known, or else seen, to be the emptier;...

Where God is merry, there write down thy fears:
What He with laughter speaks, hear thou with tears.

What shall the coming year bring forth,
O Lord, who rulest the land?
For the navies of the sea and air
Are but stubble in Thy hand.
The battalions in the field go forth;
They arm in mighty line;...

Because I sought it far from men,
In deserts and alone,
I found it burning overhead,
The jewel of a Throne.

Because I sought, I sought it so
And spent my days to find,...

Every flower that decks the way,
Whether it be dun or gay,
Fills a place in God's great plan,
Serving Him, while pleasing man.
Every star that gilds the night
With its beams of silver light...

Who trusts in God,
Fears not His rod.
-
This truth may be by all believed:
Whom God deceives, is well deceived.
-
How? when? and where? No answer comes from high;...

When I shall sin, pardon my trespass here;
For once in hell, none knows remission there.

God still rewards us more than our desert;
But when He strikes, He quarter-acts His part.

Prayers and praises are those spotless two
Lambs, by the law, which God requires as due.