Epigrams Inspired by the Inscriptions in the Library of Congress - VIII (2009)

    36
“The true shekinah is man.”

And so it was, when all was formed, that God was gracious in His plan;
In everything His face beams forth, but most of all in woman and in man.


    37
“Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
sermons in stones and good in everything.”

The tome of nature’s splendour is most marvellous to read,
For it tells us of its Author, of the wonder of His character and creed.


    38
“Man is one world and hath another to attend him.”

Imagination makes itself a garden of a wilderness,
Where every bud and floret has a poem to express,
Where loveliness is order and a harmony of peace,
And skylarks sing celestial hymns which never fade nor cease;

Imagination suffers when the heart turns flinty hard,
And all that serves us suffers when humanity is scarred;
An unhappy world attends on us; I pray we find the might
To build an earthly image of our subtle, inner light.


    39
“Vain, very vain, the weary search to find that very bliss which only centers in the mind.”

Long will you seek for happiness, yet never find its home,
If over the pastures of pleasure and pain you choose to graze and roam.


    40
“Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine.”

The world is yours as it is mine, but only for a certain time;
To us dominion is leased, that the kingdom be not lessened, but increased.