Richard Watson Gilder

The New Day. Part 3. 26. “What Can Love Do for Thee, Love?”

What can love do for thee, Love?
Can it make the green fields greener;
Bluer the skies, and bluer
The eyes of the blue-eyed flowers?
Can it make the May-day showers
More warm and sweet; serener
The heavens after the rain?
The sunset's radiant splendor
More exquisite and tender?
The Northern Star more sure?
Can it take the pang from pain?
(O Love, remember the curtain
Of cloud that lifted last night
And showed the silver light
Of a star!) Can it make more certain
The heart of the heart of all,
The good that works at the root—
The singing soul of love
That throbs in flower and fruit,
In man and earth and brute,
In hell, and heaven above?
Can its low voice musical
Make dear the day and the night?