~my song~

Love and Sacrifice


CAN we not consecrate

To man and God above

This volume of our great

Supernal tide of love?

’There wrong its wealth to waste

On merely me and you,

In selfish touch and taste,

As other lovers do.

This love is not as theirs:

It came from the Divine,

Whose glory still it wears,

And print of Whose design.

The world is full of woe,

The time is blurred with dust,

Illusions breed and grow,

And eyes’ and flesh’s lust.

The mighty league with Wrong And stint the weakling’s bread;

The very lords of song With Luxury have wed.

Fair Art deserts the mass,

And loiters with the gay;

And only gods of brass

Are popular to-day.

Two souls with love inspired,

Such lightning love as ours,

Could spread, if we desired,

Dismay among such powers:

Could social stables purge Of filth where festers strife:

Through modern baseness surge

A holier tide of life.

Yea, two so steeped in love

From such a source, could draw

The angels from above

To lead all to their Law.

We have no right to seek

Repose in rosy bower,

When Hunger thins the cheek Of childhood every hour:

Nor while the tiger, Sin, ’Mid youths and maidens roams,

Should Duty skulk within

These selfish cosy homes.

Our place is in the van With those crusaders,

who Maintain the rights of man ’

Gainst despot and his crew.

If sacrifice may move

Their load of pain from men,

The greatest right of Love Is to renounce It then.

Ah, Love, the earth is woe’s And sadly helpers needs:

And, till its burden goes, Our work is—where it bleeds.