DEAR AND INCOMPARABLE

By John Drinkwater

Dear and incomparable

Is that love to me

Flowing out of the woodlands,

Out of the sea;

Out of the firmament breathing

Between pasture and sky,

For no reward is cherished here

To reckon by.

It is not of my earning,

Nor forfeit I can

This love that flows upon

The poverty of man,

Though faithless and unkind

I sleep and forget

This love that asks no wage of me

Waits my waking yet.

Of such is the love, dear,

That you fold me in,

It knows no governance

Of virtue or sin;

From nothing of my achieving

Shall it enrichment take,

And the glooms of my unworthiness

It will not forsake.