Classic Poem

Why now, sweet Alice, though thy numbers ring
Like silver bells, methinks their burden wrong.
For if 'tis right, then were the hermits right,
And all recluses. And He was wrong
Who gave to Adam, Eve: and leaned upon
The breast of John the loved. So was He wrong
To love the gentle home at Bethany.
The sisters, and their brother Lazarus.
So was He wrong to weep at Lazarus' grave,
Pity's hot tears for Sin, and Death, and Woe.
And in that awful hour when manhood failed
And God forsook, He still was wrong to think
With tenderest solicitude and care
Upon his mother, and leave her in the charge
Of John. And He was wrong who gave us hearts
To yearn, and sensibilities to meet
Those " clinging tendrils " thou wouldst have us cut.
If thou art right, sweet Alice,
There were no ties of infancy, or age;
Of consanguinity: or noble bond
Of wide humanity, or sacred home:
For without love, — e'en our poor earthly love, —
The world were dead.
Love is the silver cord, that, being loosed,
The fabric of humanity falls wide
In hopeless wrack. Well for us it is
That when our nature, hurt, falls, shrieking, down,
The Great Physician's hand may raise it up
And bind the wound. But what mad folly 'twere
Did we, like peevish child, beat down the hand,
And tear afresh the wound. And this we do
When of our morbid selves we idols make,
And cry " No sorrow like to mine. "
O rather should we turn our tenderer hearts —
Made gentler by our griefs — to gentle cares
For weak Humanity, and, knowing what woe
Our sinful nature brings upon itself,
With God-like pity love it but the more.