To care enough yet not to care too much, How sensitive the scale of human love. In passionate embrace or gentle touch, What clumsiness can we be guilty of. Parental love is never quite content To let the child live his own life, be free. And often friendship, seeming innocent, Tips down the scale in mock humility; Or lover letting selfish love hold sway, Takes cool possession of both mind and heart Until the scales tip up the other way, And love is killed for want of better art. To keep the balance, weight for perfect weight, This the ideal. So sever love from hate. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY by JOHN MILTON RECOMPENSE by DOROTHY MOORE ALFORD YOUTH'S SONGS by MAXWELL ANDERSON SONNET ON LIFE by BROOKE BOOTHBY PRECIOUS STONES; AN INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY |