On Love

TO the assembled folk  
At great St. Kavin’s spoke  
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve;  
I give you joy, my friends,  
That as the round year ends,  
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave.  
 
On other festal days  
For penitence or praise  
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving;  
To-night we calendar  
The rising of that star  
Which lit the old world with new joy of living.  
 
Ah, we disparage still  
The Tidings of Good Will,  
Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then!  
And with the verbal creed  
That God is love indeed,  
Who dares make Love his god before all men?  
 
Shall we not, therefore, friends,  
Resolve to make amends  
To that glad inspiration of the heart;  
To grudge not, to cast out  
Selfishness, malice, doubt,  
Anger and fear; and for the better part,  
 
To love so much, so well,  
The spirit cannot tell  
The range and sweep of her own boundary!  
There is no period  
Between the soul and God;  
Love is the tide, God the eternal sea.…  
 
To-day we walk by love;  
To strive is not enough,  
Save against greed and ignorance and might.  
We apprehend peace comes  
Not with the roll of drums,  
But in the still processions of the night.  
 
And we perceive, not awe  
But love is the great law  
That binds the world together safe and whole.  
The splendid planets run  
Their courses in the sun;  
Love is the gravitation of the soul.  
 
In the profound unknown,  
Illumined, fair, and lone,  
Each star is set to shimmer in its place.  
In the profound divine  
Each soul is set to shine,  
And its unique appointed orbit trace.  
 
There is no near nor far,  
Where glorious Algebar  
Swings round his mighty circuit through the night,  
Yet where without a sound  
The winged seed comes to ground,  
And the red leaf seems hardly to alight.  
 
One force, one lore, one need  
For satellite and seed,  
In the serene benignity for all.  
Letting her time-glass run  
With star-dust, sun by sun,  
In Nature’s thought there is no great nor small.  
 
There is no far nor near  
Within the spirit’s sphere.  
The summer sunset’s scarlet-yellow wings  
Are tinged with the same dye  
That paints the tulip’s ply.  
And what is colour but the soul of things?  
 
(The earth was without form;  
God moulded it with storm,  
Ice, flood, and tempest, gleaming tint and hue;  
Lest it should come to ill  
For lack of spirit still,  
He gave it colour,—let the love shine through.)…  
 
Of old, men said, ‘Sin not;  
By every line and jot  
Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.’  
Christ said, ‘By love alone  
In man’s heart is God known;  
Obey the word no falsehood can defile.’…  
 
And since that day we prove  
Only how great is love,  
Nor to this hour its greatness half believe.  
For to what other power  
Will life give equal dower,  
Or chaos grant one moment of reprieve!  
 
Look down the ages’ line,  
Where slowly the divine  
Evinces energy, puts forth control;  
See mighty love alone  
Transmuting stock and stone,  
Infusing being, helping sense and soul.  
 
And what is energy,  
In-working, which bids be  
The starry pageant and the life of earth?  
What is the genesis  
Of every joy and bliss,  
Each action dared, each beauty brought to birth?  
 
What hangs the sun on high?  
What swells the growing rye?  
What bids the loons cry on the Northern lake?  
What stirs in swamp and swale,  
When April winds prevail,  
And all the dwellers of the ground awake?…  
 
What lurks in the deep gaze  
Of the old wolf? Amaze,  
Hope, recognition, gladness, anger, fear.  
But deeper than all these  
Love muses, yearns, and sees,  
And is the self that does not change nor veer.  
 
Not love of self alone,  
Struggle for lair and bone,  
But self-denying love of mate and young,  
Love that is kind and wise,  
Knows trust and sacrifice,  
And croons the old dark universal tongue.…  
 
And who has understood  
Our brothers of the wood,  
Save he who puts off guile and every guise  
Of violence,—made truce  
With panther, bear, and moose,  
As beings like ourselves whom love makes wise?  
 
For they, too, do love’s will,  
Our lesser clansmen still;  
The House of Many Mansions holds us all;  
Courageous, glad and hale,  
They go forth on the trail,  
Hearing the message, hearkening to the call.…  
 
Open the door to-night  
Within your heart, and light  
The lantern of love there to shine afar.  
On a tumultuous sea  
Some straining craft, maybe,  
With bearings lost, shall sight love’s silver star.