love poem

Give them just a little love,
These poor creatures with no traces
Of the lovely in their faces.
Though they take your gift with scorning,
Though they grieve you night and morning;
In the name of God above,
Give them just a little love.

Give them just a little love,
Touch their hands in friendly fashion,
Speak to them in kind compassion,
Tell them of the Heavenly City,
With its everlasting pity,
In the name of God above;
Give them just a little love.

Give them just a little love,

Pass where the winds pause before they cross,
pass where the clouds pause before they cross,
the pass of Changsong ridge
where wild-born falcons,
tamed falcons,
peregrine falcons,
and yearling falcons pause before they cross—
If they said my love were over the pass,
I would cross it without a pause.

I wonder did you ever count
The value of one human fate;
Or sum the infinite amount
Of one heart's treasures, and the weight
Of Life's one venture, and the whole concentrate purpose of a soul.

And if you ever pause to think
That all this in your hands I laid
Without a fear:—did you not shrink
From such a burden? half afraid,
Half wishing that you could divide the risk, or cast it all aside.

While Love has daily perils, such
As none foresee and none control;
And hearts are strung so that one touch,

Ah, let me forget!
For now my thoughts are as thick
as once
was my hair—
black then, but
now frosty
as Isonokami's sands.

Fear, Faith, and Hope have sent their hearts above:
Prudence, Obedience, and Humility
Climb at their call, all scaling heaven toward Love.
Fear hath least grace but great expediency;
Faith and Humility show grave and strong;
Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally.
Obedience marches marshalling their throng,
Goes first, goes last, to left hand or to right;
And all the six uplift a pilgrim's song.
By day they rest not, nor they rest by night:
While Love within them, with them, over them,

The loves of later life are many and bold
And press their cause with overweening hands;
They smile upon us now from sundry lands,
And some bring pleasures in a cup of gold.
Passion, superb and lustrous, crowns the old
Not seldom; wreathes their foreheads in bright bands
Of flowers, and, smiling, waiteth their commands;
Not all desires at Autumn's touch wax cold.

Yet one word we reserve with holy zeal
For youth alone and first love—even “sweetness:”
This only young joy wins in its completeness;

Six months to six years added he remained
Upon this sinful earth, by sin unstained:
O blessèd Lord! whose mercy then removed
A Child whom every eye that looked on loved;
Support us, teach us calmly to resign
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine!

Among the Mirtles, as I walkt,
Love and my sighs thus intertalkt:
Tell me, said I, in deep distresse,
Where I may find my Shepardesse.
Thou foole, said Love, know'st thou not this?
In every thing that's sweet, she is.
In yond' Carnation goe and seek,
There thou shalt find her lip and cheek:
In that ennamel'd Pansie by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye:
In bloome of Peach, and Roses bud,
There waves the Streamer of her blood.
'Tis true, said I, and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one,

If you had not been here
Or I had not chanced by—
Oh, let's not think of that, my dear,
And let's not even try;

For Spring fills all the year
And Love lights all the sky,
Since you—thank God!—are you, my dear,
And here, thank God! am I!

I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old bike there?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,
And its battered old frame brings the tears to my eyes;
'Tis bound with a thousand bands to my heart,
Though the sprocket's bent and the links are apart.
Would you know the spell? My grandma sat there,
Upon that old saddle, and zipped through the air.
In childhood's hour I lingered near
That old machine, with listening ear,
For grandma's shrieks through the house would ring