Poetry Archives

Every time would have its song
  If the heart were right,
Seeing Love all tender-strong
  Fills the day and night.

Weary drop the hands of Prayer
  Calling out for peace;
Love always and everywhere
  Sings and does not cease.

Fear, the caitiff, through the night
  Silent peers about;
Love comes singing with a light
  And doth cast him out.

Hate and Guile and Wrath and Doubt
  Never try to sing;
If they did, oh, what a rout
  Anguished ears would sting!

Pride indeed will sometimes aim
  At the finer speech,
But the best that he can frame
  Is a peacock-screech.

Greed will also sometimes try:
  Happiness he hunts!
But his dwelling is a sty,
  And his tones are grunts.

Faith will sometimes raise a song
  Soaring up to heaven,
Then she will be silent long,
  And will weep at even.

Hope has many a gladsome note
  Now and then to pipe;
But, alas, he has the throat
  Of a bird unripe.

Often Joy a stave will start
  Which the welkin rends,
But it always breaks athwart,
  And untimely ends.

Grief, who still for death doth long,
  Always self-abhorred,
Has but one low, troubled song,
I am sorry, Lord.

But Love singeth in the vault.
  Singeth on the stair;
Even for Sorrow will not halt,
  Singeth everywhere.

For the great Love everywhere
  Over all doth glow;
Draws his birds up trough the air,
  Tends his birds below.

And with songs ascending sheer
  Love-born Love replies,
Singing Father in his ear
  Where she bleeding lies.

Therefore, if my heart were right
  I should sing out clear,
Sing aloud both day and night
  Every month in the year!