Is love the passion that the poets feign,
Drawn from the ruins of old Grecian time,
Born of the Hermae and all earthly slime,
And tricked by troubadours in trappings vain
Of flowers fantastic, like a Hindoo fane,
Or the long meter of an antique rhyme
Dancing in dactyls? Is love, then, a crime—
A rosy day's eternity of pain?
If we love God, we know what loving is;
For love is God's: He sent it to the earth,
Half-human, half-divine, all glorious—
Half-human, half-divine, but wholly His;
Not loving God, we know not true love's worth,
We taste not the great gift He gave for us.
