Poems (Linn)/God's Own

by Edith Willis Linn

GOD'S OWN.

GOD lends us the birds and the babies
 And the beautiful brilliant flowers;
We think in our pride of selfhood
 The wonderful things are ours.

But lo! when the summer is over
 The bird to its southern home flies,
And the flowers are gone from the meadow
 Where once they delighted our eyes.

And the babies, too, have departed;
 Alas! for our hurrying tears,
Some over the gloomy river,
 Some into the grown-up years.

The birds will return in the springtime
 When flowers bespangle the sod;
But the babies, the blessed babies,
 We have given them back to God.