Love that has wide, white wings like a flying swan —Oh what a noble span, From tip to tip they are more than the height of a man And curved like the sails of a boat— When over the evening river the wild swan flies The curve of those wings is like the arch of the skies Over the shielded earth. Love is most like a bird, For birds have least of the dust that gave them birth, They soar and poise and float, They wheel and swerve and skim, And their wings are strong to the wind, and swift to the light, And their voice is a promise of dawn while yet it is night, And their song is a pæan of hope before it is spring, And the song of the bird to his mate is lyrical love. 

 Love is secret and holy, a spiritual thing, Dark and silent and still In the heart of man, as a treasure is hid in a shrine. Love is splendid and fierce, as the summer sun Drenches the sea and the sky with its blaze and shine, Till every pebble is hot to the touch of the hand, And the air is a-shimmer with heat o'er the hazy land— Yet Love is not any of these things, Love is of one With the strange, half-guessed at, vast, creative plan We cannot see with our eyes nor understand— Yet is Love pitiful too, for Love is of man. 

 

 

 THE INN 

 I 

 Friendship's an inn the roads of life afford —I'll speak to you in metaphor, my friend— And there a tired man his way may wend, And, coming in, sit down beside the board, Out of the dust and glare, and boldly send For drink and victuals; haply cross his knees, And in the cool dark parlour take his ease, And gossip of his journey and its end. 

 That's friendship; there is neither right of place Nor landlord duties, just the short hour's stay From the sun and weariness between those kind And quiet walls; and when the road's to face Stony and long again, we take our way Keeping that respite gratefully in mind. 

 

 

 THE INN 

 II 

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