Eleanor Farjeon

Dedication

My body having encountered with a soul,
Be it my body's care to cherish whole
The thing it holds in trust, nor once deny
Ears to receive its faintest ghostly cry,
Nor count the large advantage of the hour
Aught in the scale beside the tiniest flower
Breathed of the spirit, nor make dim its eyes
To simple truths with things the world names wise.
Knowing too well my body's great unworth
Such essence to contain and clothe with earth,
I dare not be unworthier than I must
Lest this my soul be clogged with this my dust,
And that wherefor I owe most gratitude
Shall in the end the caging clay elude,
More soiled and more despoiled, more dragged and sad
Than was the thing from God my body had.
Even as flame consumes its husk of coal
The self must be consumèd by the soul
Till liberate from ash it leaps again,
Light seeking light, beyond the vision of men,
All that is counted I being cast adrift
Before the universe in me can lift
Up to its level of divinity:
Since therefore it has once befallen me
Wondrously for a little space to be
The vessel to whose charge the highest is given,
Pure as I may I'll render it to heaven.