He claimeth but the down to fashion this, thy gift,
The essence of His love, thine own first-born.
In brief, the babe concentrates within itself all the beauties and all the wonders of nature. Its eyes, “two lingering stars who tarried lest the dark should sorrow,” and in its face “the glow of sun flush veiled by gossamer cloud,” “rose petals” and the “lily’s satin cheek”; its voice the dove’s coo. “From all His gifts He pilfered that which made it His”—the divine essence—“to add His fullest offering of love.” This is the idealism of true poetry, and what mother looking at her own firstborn will say that it is overdrawn?
So much for mother-love. Of her lines on brotherhood I have already given example. In only a few verses, as I have said, does Patience speak of love between man and woman. The poem which follows is perhaps the most eloquent of these:
’Tis mine, this gift, ah, mine alone,
To paint the leaden sky to lilac-rose,
Or coax the sullen sun to flash,
Or carve from granite gray a flaming knight,
Or weave the twilight hours with garlands gay,
Or wake the morning with my soul’s glad song,