How oft I thank’d the Power that gave me power
To think and do for him what he could not.
I knelt: I gave my body to his needs:
Brain, hands, and all things would I yield to him.
And was I not paid back?—His dear, sweet heart,
Each slightest beat of it, would seem to thrill
Through all my veins, twice dear when serving two.
And this was love! You know the Master’s words,
That they alone who lose it find their life.
’Tis true. No soul can feel full consciousness
Of full existence till it really love,
And yield its own to serve another’s life.
“To serve Christ’s life,” you say?—But part of that
By Christ’s humaneness is to serve mankind.
I speak a law of life, a truth of God:
To heaven I dare as little limit it
As to the earth; whatever be our sphere,
We know not life therein until we love.