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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CACHE LA POUDRE by JAMES GALVIN THE ORANGE PICKER by DAVID IGNATOW TO MAY HOWARD JACKSON - SCULPTOR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON IN 'DESIGNING A CLOAK TO CLOAK HIS DESIGNS' YOU WRESTED FROM OBLIVION by MARIANNE MOORE |