Christian Love

FLORENCE RICHMOND.

True love of man and woman,
The God-inspired and human,
Athrob with wakened fiery beat
To smooth the paths of weary feet;
Like pulses of the mobile air
Thou art a life-fount everywhere.

Thou hast beheld the ruined things
In awful, wildest picturings;
But thy great love and gentleness,
Have rent the veil and dared to press
The joyous truth that knows no change,
Upon the earth, so sweetly strange.

For through the gates of solitude
The bitter pain hast thou subdued,
And loosed the bands of galling chain
In every land of Christ's domain;
And God, the omnipresent One
Breathes Christian love through works well done.