Unhoused in deserts of accepted thought,
And lost in jungles of confusing creeds,
My soul strayed, homeless, finding its own needs
Unsatisfied with what tradition taught.
The pros and cons, the little ifs and ands,
The but and maybe, and the this and that,
On which the churches thicken and grow fat,
I found but structures built on shifting sands.
And all their heavens were strange and far away,
And all their hells were made of human hate;
And since for death I did not care to wait,
A heaven I fashioned for myself one day.
Of happy thoughts I built it stone by stone,
With joy of life I draped each spacious room,
With love’s great light I drove away all gloom,
And in the centre I made God a throne.
And this dear heaven I set within my heart,
And carried it about with me alway,
And then the changing dogmas of the day
Seemed alien to my thoughts and held no part.
Now as I take my heaven from place to place
I find new rooms by love’s revealing light,
And death will give me but a larger sight
To see my palace spreading into space.