Seeds

What shall we be like when     We cast this earthly body and attain     To immortality?     What shall we be like then?     Ah, who shall say     What vast expansions shall be ours that day?     What transformations of this house of clay,     To fit the heavenly mansions and the light of day?     Ah, who shall say?     But this we know,--     We drop a seed into the ground,     A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,     And, in the fulness 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 shrivelled seed?--     --Then may man hope indeed!     For man is but the seed of what he shall be.     When, in the fulness of his perfecting,     He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,     Through earth's retardings and the 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.     Yea, we may hope!     For we are seeds,     Dropped into earth for heavenly blossoming.     Perchance, when comes the time of harvesting,     His loving care     May find some use for even a humble tare.     We know not what we shall be--only this--     That we shall be made like Him--as He is.