Analysis of Love and Sacrifice

CAN we not consecrate   
 To man and God above   
This volume of our great   
 Supernal tide of love?   

’Twere wrong its wealth to waste           
 On merely me and you,   
In selfish touch and taste,   
 As other lovers do.   

This love is not as theirs:   
 It came from the Divine,           
Whose glory still it wears,   
 And print of Whose design.   

The world is full of woe,   
 The time is blurred with dust,   
Illusions breed and grow,           
 And eyes’ and flesh’s lust.   

The mighty league with Wrong   
 And stint the weakling’s bread;   
The very lords of song   
 With Luxury have wed.           

Fair Art deserts the mass,   
 And loiters with the gay;   
And only gods of brass   
 Are popular to-day.   

Two souls with love inspired,           
 Such lightning love as ours,   
Could spread, if we desired,   
 Dismay among such powers:   

Could social stables purge   
 Of filth where festers strife:           
Through modern baseness surge   
 A holier tide of life.   

Yea, two so steeped in love   
 From such a source, could draw   
The angels from above           
 To lead all to their Law.   

We have no right to seek   
 Repose in rosy bower,   
When Hunger thins the cheek   
 Of childhood every hour:           

Nor while the tiger, Sin,   
 ’Mid youths and maidens roams,   
Should Duty skulk within   
 These selfish cosy homes.   

Our place is in the van           
 With those crusaders, who   
Maintain the rights of man   
 ’Gainst despot and his crew.   

If sacrifice may move   
 Their load of pain from men,           
The greatest right of Love   
 Is to renounce It then.   

Ah, Love, the earth is woe’s   
 And sadly helpers needs:   
And, till its burden goes,           
 Our work is—where it bleeds.