"The Alchemist" by Patricia St. John

My Master an elixer hath that turns
All base and worthless substances to gold.
From rubble stones He fashions palaces
Most beautiful and stately to behold.
He garners with a craftsman's skillful care
All that we break and weeping cast away.
His eyes see uncut opals in the rock
And shapely vessels in our trampled clay.
The sum of life's lost opportunities,
The broken friendships, and the wasted years,
These are His raw materials;
His hands rest on fragments, weld them with His tears.
A patient Alchemist! --He bides His time,
Broods while the south winds breathe, the
North winds blow,
And weary self, at enmity with self,
Works out its own destruction, bitter slow,
Our gallant highways petered out in mire,
Our airy castles crumbled into dust,
Leaving us stripped of all save firece desire,
He comes, with feet deliberate and slow,
Who counts a contrite heart His sacrifice.
(No other bidders rise to stake their claims,
He only on our ruins sets a price.)
And stooping very low engraves with care
His name, indelible, upon our dust;
And from the ashes of our self-despair
Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust.
He seeks no second site on which to build,
But on the old foundation, stone by stone,
Cementing sad experiance with grace,
Fashions a stronger temple of His own.

An Ordinary Woman’s Extraordinary Faith - The Autobiography of Patricia St. John; Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, IL; (1993) pgs. 297-298