LOVE'S AS WARM AS TEARS



Love's as warm as tears,

Love is tears:

Pressure within the brain,

Tension at the throat,

Deluge, weeks of rain,

Haystacks afloat,

Featureless seas between

Hedges, where once was green.



Love's as fierce as fire,

Love is fire:

All sorts - infernal heat

Clinkered with greed and pride,

Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,

Laughing, even when denied,

And that empyreal flame

Whence all loves came.



Love's as fresh as spring,

Love is spring:

Bird-song hung in the air,

Cool smells in a wood,

Whispering 'Dare! Dare!'

To sap, to blood,

Telling 'Ease, safety, rest,

Are good: not best.'



Love's as hard as nails,

Love is nails:

Blunt, thick, hammered through

The medial nerves of One

Who, having made us, knew

The thing He had done,

Seeing (with all that is)


Our cross, and His.





C. S. Lewis