Songs 49

¹Though perfect eloquence adorn’d

my sweet persuading tongue,

Though I could speak in higher strains

than ever angel sung;

²Though prophecy my soul inspir’d,

and made all myst’ries plain:

Yet, were I void of Christian love,

these gifts were all in vain.

³Nay, though my faith with boundless pow’r

ev’n mountains could remove,

I still am nothing, if I’m void

of charity and love.

⁴Although with lib’ral hand I gave

my goods the poor to feed,

Nay, gave my body to the flames,

still fruitless were the deed.

⁵Love suffers long; love envies not;

but love is ever kind;

She never boasteth of herself,

nor proudly lifts the mind.

⁶Love harbours no suspicious thought,

is patient to the bad;

Griev’d when she hears of sins and crimes,

and in the truth is glad.

⁷Love no unseemly carriage shows,

nor selfishly confin’d;

She glows with social tenderness,

and feels for all mankind.

⁸Love beareth much, much she believes,

and still she hopes the best;

Love meekly suffers many a wrong,

though sore with hardship press’d.

⁹Love still shall hold an endless reign

in earth and heav’n above,

When tongues shall cease, and prophets fail,

and ev’ry gift but love.

¹⁰Here all our gifts imperfect are;

but better days draw nigh,

When perfect light shall pour its rays,

and all those shadows fly.

¹¹Like children here we speak and think,

amus’d with childish toys;

But when our pow’rs their manhood reach,

we’ll scorn our present joys.

¹²Now dark and dim, as through a glass,

are God and truth beheld;

Then shall we see as face to face,

and God shall be unvail’d.

¹³Faith, Hope, and Love, now dwell on earth,

and earth by them is blest;

But Faith and Hope must yield to Love,

of all the graces best.

¹⁴Hope shall to full fruition rise,

and Faith be sight above:

These are the means, but this the end;

for saints for ever love.