True Love

True Love is but a humble, low-born thing,
And hath its food served up in earthenware;
It is a thing to walk with hand in hand,
Through the every-dayness of this work-day world,
Baring its tender feet to every roughness,
Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray
From Beauty's law of plainness and content;
A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet smile
Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a home,
Which, when our autumn cometh, as it must,
And life in the chill wind shivers bare and leafless,
Shall still be blest with Indian-summer youth
In bleak November, and, with thankful heart,
Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit,
As full of sunshine to our aged eyes
As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring.-
Such is true Love, which steals into the heart
With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn
That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark,
And hath its will through blissful gentleness,
Not like a rocket, which, with savage glare,
Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night
Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes;
A Love that gives and takes, that seeth faults,
Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle-points,
But, loving kindly, ever looks them down
With the o'ercoming faith of meek forgiveness;
A Love that shall be new and fresh each hour,
As is the golden mystery of sunset,
Or the sweet coming of the evening star;
Alike, and yet most unlike, every day,
And seeming ever best and fairest now.