Poem April 8, 1950 Issue

FREEDOM TO LOVE

Rosemary C. Cobham

Freedom to love! God's heritage for man,
Achieved through no great virtue of his own,
But his by virtue of his being God's—
His image, His reflection, His loved son.

Freedom to love! Freedom for thought to flow
In constant benediction. Spiritual sense
Discerns the true, compels the false to yield,
And loves with steady, clear intelligence
The man God made, by Love divine revealed.
Freedom to love, though no apparent need
Lays claim upon our love. Freedom to see
That flower and fruitage lie within a seed,
And love the seen and unseen equally.
Freedom to love with patient, pure desire
All that we long to be, all that we really are.

O timid heart, shut in by pride or fears,
Resentment, or heartbrokenness, or loss,
Or frozen with the bitterness of years,
Or clinging still to some dead weight of cross—
Lift but a corner of your solitude
And Love shall stream through on such redeeming shaft
That you shall feel the warmth of gratitude,
See the cross fade, reach forward for the gift
Forever yours—the power to live and love;
Feel doubts resolve, hate loosen and let go,
The adamantine rock of self remove,
And man appear in fullest princely stature,
Loving because his Father made him so,
Loving because it is his royal nature.