Agape

                                Agape 

         (For: G.J. and E.J. Whitehorn)

          “You were such love, personified, for me

            When I was most in need of charity”

                                             (J. A. B; vide 1 Corinthians 13, vv.4-8 and 13)

                                     i.

                    Love knows no limit,

                         Has no price;

                    It is a spirit

               That can outlast death,

Transcending barriers of time and space,

                   Of creed and race.

               Love owns no shibboleth,

          Nor representative device

     Without which it could not exist;

          Nor needs love an apologist.

     Love is itself complete, itself entire;

It wants no logic to invoke its power,

          Nor does it alter by the hour,

     Affected by life’s inconsistencies.

 Love is more constant than desire

And more enduring than the ageless seas.

                                ii.

                              Love breeds from love

                                   And on love feeds.

                    It does not offer stone instead of bread

                         Nor serpents serve in place of fish,

                              Nor poison pour for drink.

                                   Love does not think

                              To count its costs, nor wish

                         For compensating gifts. Instead,

                    Love gives because it wants to give,

               Or else because somebody needs

                    Or asks for its assistance.

                         Love suffers, (though it bleeds

                    For its concerned persistence),

                         From contumelious disregard

                         And undeserved sharp spites

                    When jealousies and greed

                              Love supersede.

                                         iii.

                         Love can project itself,

                    In all its boundless wealth,

                              Into another self —

                 As holograms on lasered plates

          Extend their three-dimensioned forms

                    From two-dimensioned states

               When lit with skilful stealth —

                    For love transforms and beautifies

                             The ugliest of things,

                    By virtue of its universal grace,

               Which places subjects in their proper light

                    And shews through its pure lucency each trace

          Of finer qualities which from plain sight

          Had been concealed by grosser coverings.

                                                  iv.

          Love can regenerate lost charm

                    And also give

     Hope where was only deep despondency.

(Though love can kill — that what it loves should be

               Preserved from harm —

     Or seem to die — that what it loves may live —

It is forgiving, tender, kind and strong

     Beyond all reason’s range).

                         Love is a spirit

                    Of such unbounded charity

               And rare particularity

                    That it can sacrifice

               Itself and yet survive, intact,

          Within another mind

               Beyond death’s common chance.

                                          v.

          Love gently sings its steadfast song

               When everything about seems bleak

                    Or subject to unstable change.

                              Love is not cold

                         But warm and kind

                    And spends its strength to save

                         The helpless weak

                    And to support the brave:

          For love is indestructible

          And love in ineluctable.

                                          vi.

                         Love knows no limit,

                              Has no price:

                    It is unpurchaseable

                         And unsellable;

               More than a thousandfold

                    Richer than gold,

               But cheaper than aught

                    Than can be bought.

                              Love is more freely

                                   Unconfined

                             Than any liberty

                    That yet has been defined.

Love’s immortality is proven fact:

Love can’t be circumscribed by circumstance

                                     vii.

                    This is my litany of praise

That shall be sung through endless days;

         For love transcends all happenstance,

     In its sublime self-confidence,

Since love is indestructible

And love is ineluctable.