Classic Poem

All needful works accomplished and endured,
Nearer, and yet more near, my God to Thee;
Touch we the things that are, with hand assured,
With hand relaxed, the things that seem to be

Lest, like the expiration of a breath,
Which a child breathes and watches on a glass,
Our breath of being all absorbed, in Death,
With all those things that pass away, we pass.

For where the treasure is the heart, we know,
Is; and where the heart is there the life has root;
And in what soil soever ye may sow,—
There,—and there only, may ye seek your fruit.

And many seeds men sow in many soils,
Watering the ground about with many tears
And sweat of brow, who yet from all their toils
And sorrows pluck no other fruit than fears.

For so is man, as one who in a dream
Of pleasantness would fain see all as sooth;
Yet knows the things he sees are things that seem,
And dreads the hour of waking into Truth.

For what is Truth? The Altar, or the Fire;
Blood, or the Life; the Sabbath, or the Rest;
Words, or the Thought; the Deed, or the Desire;
The expressive symbol, or the thing expressed?

Is it the furtive hour on drowsy wing;—
Is it the dial whereon the sunbeams play;—
That is the Truth? Is Time the real thing?
Time,—or the shifting sand that marks its way?

Aspiring to the home from whence it came,
The spark of life, lent only and not given,
Plays o'er the altar-stone of Time in flame,
Consumes the form,—but clothes the soul for Heaven.

Wherefore, dear Child, live in the Soul of things.
There is thy home; thence is thy place of birth;
So to the parent Sun all flame upsprings;
While earthy things but gravitate to earth.