Love's Substitute

Bernard O'Dowd 1866 (Beaufort) – 1953



This love, that dares not warm before its flame
   Our yearning hands, or from its tempting tree
Yield fruit we may consume, or let us claim
   In Hymen's scroll of happy heraldry
   The twining glyphs of perfect you and me --
May kindle social fires whence curls no blame,
   Find gardens where no fruits forbidden be,
And mottoes weave, unsullied by a shame.

For, love, unmothered Childhood wanly waits
   For such as you to cherish it to Youth:
   Raw social soils untilled need Love's own verve
That Peace a-flower may oust their weedy hates:
   And where Distress would faint from wolfish sleuth
   The perfect lovers' symbol is "We serve!"

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

33 sec read
119

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABBABA CDECDE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 653
Words 112
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6

Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years; he was also a co-publisher and writer for the radical paper Tocsin. Bernard O'Dowd lived to age 87. more…

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