m of Love
Is hid by storms that rage above,
I gaze in my two springs and see
Love in his very verity.

* * * *

O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,
--My springs from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams
That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.

Oval and large and passion-pure
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as a dying violet-breath
Yet calmly unafraid of death.

* * * *

Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete--
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,
--I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!"

Now, what was there in the seeming frown of God to make the eyes of
love shine? It was just this: they were alight with the joy that comes
when love is privileged to share the pain of the beloved.

I heard a grizzled old soldier who was an officer in the Civil War tell
of a raw recruit who came into his regiment. This recruit was awkward
and uncouth and unattractive. He seemed to be little more than an
incarnate blunder. He would stumble and fall down over his own musket.
Naturally he was the butt of many jokes. He was the laughing stock of
all his comrades. But this officer said that he tried to befriend him.
But if the uncouth fellow appreciated his efforts to help him he never
said so. He seemed as awkward in expressing himself as he was in all
other respects.

"One night," said this officer, "we were sleeping without tents and it
was bitter cold. I shivered under my blanket till I went to sleep.
When I waked in the morning, however, I was warm. Then I noticed, to
my astonishment, that I was sleeping under two blankets instead of one.
I looked about me for an explanation. A little way off was this gawky,
green, uncouth soldier striding back and forth with the snow pelting
him in the face. He was waving his thin arms as he walked to keep from
freezing to death. That soldier died a few days later. He died from
the exposure of that night. But a smile was on his face as I sat
beside him." Now, why did the soldier smile? You know. He was
rejoicing that he was able to spare and to share the suffering of his
friend.

"I long to share in His sufferings." That is the language of love. To
one who does not know love it will forever be a mystery. But to the
lover it is easily comprehensible. Any real mother can understand it.
Down in Tennessee a few years ago a mother w