Whym Chow: Flame of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thy Love... for thy own self thou had'st demand;
But gave of love as Kings give of their grace
Out of the favour found before their face;
O royal creature, from whose heart was banned
All that in other love craves or makes store
For its own hunger. As pure element
Thy love went out toward its election, blent
With no self-gain as man's is evermore.
Oh, when a man loves with demand he comes—
There is the war of wants and of desires:
Thy love was as the inner, earliest fires,
No fathom-line of covetousness plumbs,
For they sustain the universe. While man
In his poor passion only would attain,
They are inviolate to any bane,
Magnificent, taintless of scheme or plan.
So was thy love, O little heart, complete
In gift of fire! Ideal was the scope
Of plenitude, of freedom from all hope
Or any claim, as sunshine's vernal sheet.
So to be loved across the barren days—
To have what human hearts will scarcely give,
To be upheld by gift; by fire to live
Even as the universe! O God, praise, praise!