Selected Poems of Francis Thompson

by Francis Thompson

To WILFRID AND ALICE MEYNELL

If the rose in meek duty May dedicate humbly To her grower the beauty Wherewith she is comely; If the mine to the miner The jewels that pined in it; Earth to diviner The springs he divined in it; To the grapes the wine-pitcher Their juice that was crushed in it; Viol to its witcher The music lay hushed in it; If the lips may pay Gladness In laughters she wakened, And the heart to its sadness Weeping unslakened; If the hid and sealed coffer Whose having not his is, To the loosers may proffer Their finding—here this is; Their lives if all livers To the Life of all living,— To you, O dear givers, I give your own giving!