How should I be to Love unjust Since Love hath been so kind to me? O how forget thy tender trust Or slight the bond that set me free? How should thy spirit's blithe embrace, Thy loyalty, have been given in vain, From the first beckoning of thy grace That made a child of me again, And since hath still my manhood led Through scathe and trouble hour by hour, And in probation perfected The explicit fruit of such a flower? Not ev'n the Apostles, in the days They walked with Christ, lov'd him so well As we may now, who ken his praise Reading the story that they tell, Writ by them when their vision grew And he, who fled and thrice denied Christ to his face, was proven true And gladly for His memory died: So strong the Vision, there was none O'er whom the Fisher's net was cast, Ev'n of the fearfullest not one Who would have left Him at the last. So 'tis with me; the time hath clear'd Not dull'd my loving: I can see Love's passing ecstasies endear'd In aspects of eternity: I am like a miser—I can say That having hoarded all my gold I must grow richer every day And die possess'd of wealth untold. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LITTLE BOY BLUE by EUGENE FIELD ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 54 by PHILIP SIDNEY SHADOWS IN THE WATER by THOMAS TRAHERNE MANHATTAN ARMING by WALT WHITMAN SIBLINGS OF A GRAYER SKY by NAVEED ALAM PSALM 109 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 34. REMINDING HER OF A PROMISE (1) by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE SHEPHERD'S PIPE: FIRST ECLOGUE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |