THE EARTH-BOND
Surely both earth and heaven are God’s; and so
He will not count it sin if I should love
More than the unknown heaven above
His dear earth that I know.
Meadow and sea and sky, and storm and shine,
Glad voices that from croft and coppice call,
The city loud with life, and all
Of mortal and divine
That make this earth akin to you and me,
Partner in hopes we live by or regret—
Dear are they all, and dearer yet
Some human two or three.
So that, as one in sleep may leave his bed
And, blindly drawn to haunts he loved by day,
Walk through an old familiar way
With sure, unconscious tread,
In the last sleep, if I should dream and do
Even as thus some living sleeper might,
I shall stray, ghost-like, in the night
Home to the earth I knew.