Bernard O'Dowd

Love's Substitute

This love, that dares not warm before its flame
 Our yearning hands, or from its tempting tree
Yield fruit we may consume, or let us claim
 In Hymen's scroll of happy heraldry
 The twining glyphs of perfect you and me —
May kindle social fires whence curls no blame,
 Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be,
And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame.

For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waits
 For such as you to cherish it to Youth:
  Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verve
That Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates:
 And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuth
  The perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!"

Our Duty

Yet what were Love if man remains unfree,
 And woman's sunshine sordid merchandise:
If children's Hope is blasted ere they see
 Its shoots of youth from out the branchlets rise:
 If thought is chained, and gagged is Speech, and Lies
Enthroned as Law befoul posterity,
 And haggard Sin's ubiquitous disguise
Insults the face of God where'er men be?

Ay, what were Love, my love, did we not love
 Our stricken brothers so, as to resign
  For Its own sake, the foison of Its dower:
That, so, we two may help them mount above
 These layers of charnel air in which they pine,
  To seek with us the Presence and the Power?