Love is Religious Life
Most men know love but as a part of life:
They hide it in some corner of the breast,
Even from themselves; and only when they rest
In the brief pauses of that daily strife,—
Wherewith the world might else be not quite so rife,—
They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy),
And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.
Ah me! Why may not love and life be one?
Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,
Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?
How would the marts grow noble I and the street,
Worn like a dungeon floor by weary feet,
Seem then a golden court-way of the Sun!
—Henry Timrod.
Under a Canopy of Love
I say to thee, do thou repeat
To the first man that thou mayest meet
In lane, highway, or open street—
That he, and we, and all men, move
Under a canopy of love,
As broad as the blue sky above:
That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread,
Through dark ways under ground be led:
Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way,
Shall issue out in heavenly day.
And we, on divers shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father’s house at last.
—Richard C. Trench.
Alternate Reading: Romans 5:1-11.