Do Not Deny Love

Do not deny Love

   nor quench its strong embrace.

Love beckons and it calls;

   Love woos you with its grace.

 

See how many times, ere you had known,

   this Love had borne you softly:

   protected, directed, corrected;

and kept you from your own

   harm that you had imagined “lofty.”

Oh see with what tender heart Love broods over you

   to reck, to check, to beck and bend

   and blast your gourds that grow not true—

All in love to bring you to that glorious end!

But, O! How strong the pull that opposes,

   interdicts and imposes fallacies and lies!

Do not deny Love

   nor chafe under its gentle care.

Do not be drawn back to feeble lights

   whilst Love its sunlight shares!

Do not be drawn to sin and darkness

   like moth to harmful flame.

   like pig to dirt and wallow, filth and shame.

Is it in your nature to be thus drawn?

   To fritter, flitter, fob and fawn?

Then ask why this may be!

   And if you still be moth within,

   then turn, yearn and churn within,

   and call, fall, and recall Love’s mercies new again each morn.

It is not within your strength to change your nature,

   but Love, in its strong embrace,

   will change, exchange—think not strange!

   So that no longer moth but His child reborn!

Do not deny Love

   but hasten to submit, admit and bend;

And there with shall bloom forth a thousand gifts—

   All crowned with Love who is your Friend.

- D. Benning