Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYDROMEL AND RUE, by GEORGE MARION MCCLELLAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYDROMEL AND RUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lord, let me live to serve and make a loan
Last Line: Triumphantly, in thanks to thee, dear lord.
Subject(s): Drinks & Drinking; Wine


Lord, let me live to serve and make a loan
Of life and soul in love to my heart's own.
And what if they should never care or know
How dark sometimes and weary are the ways,
How piercing cold and pitiless the snow,
How desolate and lonely are the days
Which life for me holds sometimes in reserve?
And what if those I love esteem above
Me, others all untried and far less true,
And lightly barter off my wealth of love
For careless, strange, and passing comrades new?
Oh Lord, those, whom I love, I still would serve.

To be permitted, once in this short life,
To hold a little child close to my heart
In fatherhood, as mine, is worth all strife
Which circumstance and time to me impart.
To know the bliss of chaste and holy love,
To have one friend to even half divine
My hungry heart, is heaven from above
Come to this ever-longing soul of mine.

And so, dear Lord, I thank Thee for the cup
Of hydromel Thou givest me to sup,
Though rue and hyssop pass my lips and fill
My life with earthly sorrow, grief, and pain,
In faith my soul will rise to thank Thee still
For garish day, for guerdon and its gain.
And though through time insentient clay, the sward,
My erstwhile form may hold; for joy, for life,
For everlasting love, sunshine and rain,
My ardent heart above all earthly strife,
Unbound in space, soars up through joy and pain
Triumphantly, in thanks to Thee, dear Lord.





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