Love and the Child

‘WHY do you so clasp me,
And draw me to your knee?
Forsooth, you do but chafe me,
I pray you let me be:
I will but be loved now and then
When it liketh me!’

So I heard a young child,
A thwart child, a young child
Rebellious against love’s arms,
Make its peevish cry.

To the tender God I turn: —
‘Pardon, Love most High!
For I think those arms were even Thine,
And that child even I.’