LOVE

To cease from egotistic ambition and learn love with a humble mind is the lesson of this verse by John G. Neehardt:

For my faith was the faith of dusk and riot,

The faith of fevered blood and selfish lust;

Until I learned that love is cool and quiet

And not akin to dust.

For once as in Apocalyptic vision,

Above my smoking altars did I see

My god’s face, veilless, ugly with derision—

The shameless, magnified; projected—Me!