By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

And if I say I love, and yet forbear
To do her will, what does my love suffice?
Barren it is, and all my songs are lies.
Yea, though I touch the limit of despair,
And breathe in sorrow, as I breathe the air,
Find the earth waste, and gray the sunlit skies,
A void where once I dreamed of paradise,
A bitter end of every hope and prayer,

Yet slight her least command, my love were vain, —
A pitiful and unregarded thing,
And I unworthy of her fame to sing, —
Too strong to fall, too feeble to attain.
But if I do her will my life shall prove
The depth and glory of her saving love.