A Hymn of Return: On the Sacred Duty to Fill Every God-Given Talent with Beauty as Our Humble Offering

The poem presents every human talent (artistic, manual, relational, intellectual) as a small spark of God’s own infinite Beauty, lent to us not for self-glory but to be returned to Him transformed into lovelier praise.

It begins with the quiet truth that God has placed a unique “note” in each person and asks only that we make His beauty endure through our lives. Like a rose that cannot help but give back fragrance, we are to take whatever we have been given (brush, voice, hammer, lullaby, garden, poem) and fill it with reverence and excellence, and offer it back as worship.

Talents are never truly “ours”; they are loans of divine glory meant to increase through use. The poem urges us never to let any gift rust or fall silent, but to polish it until it glows with something more than human, becoming a mirror that flashes one ray of God’s light into the world.

The closing vision is eschatological: when the final day comes and all partial beauties are gathered into the Perfect Beauty, every small act of consecrated craftsmanship will expand into the eternal flame from which it came, and God will delight to recognize Himself in the humble human work offered with love.

In essence, the poem is a lyrical call to stewardship: live and work in such a way that every talent becomes a humble, beautiful gift returned to the Giver, an act of liturgical beauty that prepares us for the unending Beauty of heaven.

The Lord of Beauty lent us each a spark,
A single note to sound within His song;
He shaped the hand, the voice, the eye, the heart,
And whispered soft: “Now make My beauty long.”

Not for our praise, nor for the world’s applause,
But as the rose returns its scent to air,
We take the gift and, trembling at the cause,
Pour loveliness again into His care.

The painter’s brush, the poet’s burning line,
The gardener’s patient, green, and quiet art,
The mother’s lullaby, the carpenter’s design,
Each humble craft a beating of God’s heart.

For talent is not ours; it is a loan
Of glory, lent that glory may increase;
A mirror set beneath the sun alone
To catch one ray and fling it into peace.

Then let no gift lie rusted, mute, or dim;
Let every skill be polished till it shine
With something more than human seraphim
Can claim, till it reflects the borders of divine.

So work, O soul! and sing, and build, and sow,
With fear and love and wonder in your hands;
That when the final beauty shall bestow
Its perfect day, your fragment may expand
Into the endless Beauty whence it came,
And God behold Himself in your small flame.