Hymn To Love Poem by Lascelles Abercrombie

Hymn To Love

Rating: 3.0


We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
As théou, Léove, were the déep thought
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
Thy fires of thought out-spoken:

But burn’d not through us thy imagining
Like fiérce méood in a séong céaught,
We were as clamour’d words a fool may fling,
Loose words, of meaning broken.

For what more like the brainless speech of a fool,—
The lives travelling dark fears,
And as a boy throws pebbles in a pool
Thrown down abysmal places?

Hazardous are the stars, yet is our birth
And our journeying time theirs;
As words of air, life makes of starry earth
Sweet soul-delighted faces;

As voices are we in the worldly wind;
The great wind of the world’s fate
Is turn’d, as air to a shapen sound, to mind
And marvellous desires.

But not in the world as voices storm-shatter’d,
Not borne down by the wind’s weight;
The rushing time rings with our splendid word
Like darkness fill’d with fires.

For Love doth use us for a sound of song,
And Love’s meaning our life wields,
Making our souls like syllables to throng
His tunes of exultation.

Down the blind speed of a fatal world we fly,
As rain blown along earth’s fields;
Yet are we god-desiring liturgy,
Sung joys of adoration;

Yea, made of chance and all a labouring strife,
We go charged with a strong flame;
For as a language Love hath seized on life
His burning heart to story.

Yea, Love, we are thine, the liturgy of thee,
Thy thought’s golden and glad name,
The mortal conscience of immortal glee,
Love’s zeal in Love’s own glory.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM

Precious lovers out there, hear the call by a contemporary of yours........

3 0 Reply
Kevin Straw 26 June 2010

A hymn to the god of love which, if there were such a god, would have some meaning. Otherwise, however good the poetry, it is all false. God is love, love is god - what on earth can those statements mean? What the weird spellings in the first two verses are there for I do not know and I do not care.

3 0 Reply
Carlos Echeverria 26 June 2012

Abercrombie reminds us that we owe our existence to the satisfaction of love's desire.

2 1 Reply
Michael Pruchnicki 26 June 2011

Good gosh almighty! he said as he read the cantankerous comments posted by colicky colleagues!

0 2 Reply
Juan Olivarez 30 June 2011

Lighten up Francis (Michael)

1 0 Reply
MAHTAB BANGALEE 24 January 2021

love is itself a mercy, love is itself a blessings; love is the ubiquitous hymn...

0 0 Reply
Dr Antony Theodore 12 April 2020

Yea, Love, we are thine, the liturgy of thee, Thy thought’s golden and glad name, The mortal conscience of immortal glee, Love’s zeal in Love’s own glory. the final verse is so telling about love. tony

0 0 Reply
Mahtab Bangalee 23 December 2019

For Love doth use us for a sound of song, And Love’s meaning our life wields, Making our souls like syllables to throng His tunes of exultation. ........./// superb and rapturous expression

0 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 09 January 2016

For Love doth use us for a sound of song, And Love’s meaning our life wields, Making our souls like syllables to throng His tunes of exultation.

2 0 Reply
Susan Williams 17 October 2015

there are many beautiful lines to love in this poem

20 0 Reply
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