We drop a seed into the ground,
A tiny, shapeless thing, shriveled and dry,
And, in the fullness of its time, is seen
A form of peerless beauty, robed and crowned.

Beyond the pride of any earthly queen,
Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,
The perfect emblem of its Maker’s care.
This from a shriveled seed?—
—Then may man hope indeed!

For man is but the seed of what he shall be,
When, in the fullness of his perfecting,
He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,
Through earth’s retardings and clinging clay,
Into the sunshine of God’s perfect day.

No fetters then! No bonds of time or space!
But powers as ample as the boundless grace
That suffered man, and death, and yet in tenderness,
Set wide the door, and passed Himself before—
As He had promised—to prepare a place.

We know not what we shall be—only this—
That we shall be made like Him—as He is.

John Oxenham

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