How gracious is the Hand tinting the tress
With scarlet hues and bronze-petal array
He draws the eye to summer’s swift decay
And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness
Beneath the lowered arches of the cloud
The earth responds to Heaven’s will sublime
To everything purposed thing there is a time
Thus seasons pass through mercy’s tender shroud
And mortal marvels at His patient grace
That He should please our gaze with such delight
When oft we fret and thanklessly we pine
He lends to earth the shadow of a Place
Not made with Hands; where faith at last is sight
Our eyes traverse the barred horizon-line
We glimpse His love; astonished we descry
But earthly frames of Him as we behold
Each season-scape; the emerald turns to gold
Spring’s verdant rush is fall’s depleting sigh
The quadrille of life’s swift four-season scope
Dances across Time’s charted centuries
Thought cannot grasp unmarked eternities
And as we cling to promises of hope
Our wonderment abounds and escalates
For what is man that He remembers him?
And rescues us from utter wantonness
A mirror of His goodness He creates
As glory crowns the humble, wooded limb
And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness
Lift up your voice; oh, God accept our praise
You do not leave us groveling in the dirt
But in life’s grievous toiling and its hurt
You stun the meek spectator with Your ways
And though we do not understand your thought
We trust; holy compassion spills its heart
And lends to humble sod Your perfect art
In manuscripts of nature we are taught
To everything on earth there is a time
From seed to bud to bloom then back to earth
This is the way of dust; His righteousness
In grand profusion, wondrous and sublime
Imbues our paltry pittance with His worth
And gilds the autumn tress with awesomeness
© Janet Martin
