Ii

Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried, ‘Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream; And human life a troubled aimless stream; And God is nowhere. Would God so deride A loving creature’s faith?’ A voice replied, ‘The stream flows onward to the Source Supreme, Where things that ARE replace the things that SEEM, And where the deeds of all past lives abide. Once at thy door Love languished and was spurned. Who sorrow plants, must garner sorrow’s sheaf. No prayers can change the seedling in the sod. By thine own heart Love’s anguish must be learned. Pass on, and know, as one made wise by grief, That in thyself dwells heaven and hell and God.’