How oft I thank’d the Power that gave me power To think and do for him what he could not. I knelt: I gave my body to his needs: Brain, hands, and all things would I yield to him. And was I not paid back?—His dear, sweet heart, Each slightest beat of it, would seem to thrill Through all my veins, twice dear when serving two. And this was love! You know the Master’s words, That they alone who lose it find their life. ’Tis true. No soul can feel full consciousness Of full existence till it really love, And yield its own to serve another’s life. “To serve Christ’s life,” you say?—But part of that By Christ’s humaneness is to serve mankind. I speak a law of life, a truth of God: To heaven I dare as little limit it As to the earth; whatever be our sphere, We know not life therein until we love. XIII. True love has life eternal, infinite. Complete within itself, and craving naught, It needs no future far, nor outlet vast, Nor aught to feel or touch in time or space. A sense within, itself its own reward, It waits not on return. For it, to love Is better than to be loved, better far To be a God than man. At least, my love More further’d me than Haydn. With all I long’d And all I toil’d, Doretta was the one Who could the best succeed in aiding him. For she at home had dwelt, knew household ways; And I was but a bungler, knew them not. And so to me was mainly given the task, To fan him while he slept. But, when he woke, Although his lips would move with no complaint, Nor eyes would glance for other than myself, I could not do for him as then could she. For she would turn his pillow, tell him tales, Bring books and pictures, just what pleas’d him most. But, ah, to me those patient eyes of his Appear’d such holy things! My deeds were hush’d: I did not dare disturb the silence there. It could not all have been mere selfishness; Yet I to look at him was all content. XIV. And my inaptitude my sister knew. And partly since as well as I she knew it. And partly since as well as I she loved, Whene’er she heard him waking, she would come And by him sit till fast asleep again; And only when there thus was little left That could be done, would I be left to do it. At times then I would lean above his couch, And grieve to think that I could do no more; At times would rise in thankfulness that God Would let me do so much. A thought like this Perhaps He chose to bless. I came to think That even though I might not have her art, Doretta’s art, that I at least might have As much, perhaps, as guardian angels have, Without our hands or voices, keeping watch In spirit only. Still, when sister came, The thought would come that, if their souls unseen Could envy, sometimes they might envy men.