When Man from Eden new-cast out then tore at Earth and ripped
Her coal and iron, her oil and gold, his melancholy tipped
The world toward devastated blight, toward envy, hatred, wars.
They turned sweet hills to desert wastes and pocked the Earth with sores.

And when they’d stripped her forest bare they took a forlorn tree
And crucified Compassion on a landfill Calvary.
And worst of all comes this reproof: they raped the Earth with flame;
They smeared the firmament with mire, and all was in my name.

O how will our salvation come if Earth cannot forgive,
If we do not her murd’rers bind and choose new paths to live?
O God forgive our sinful ways of waste, consuming Earth,
And make us worthy to receive in Nature’s font rebirth.

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