AFFECTION

To feel affectionate toward all things living,
All creatures great and small, is my ideal;
St. Francis is my model for such giving,
Who proves this rational abstraction real.

He shows me it is possible to feel
Our kinship with all Nature and grow kind,
To sympathize with others and to heal
What’s broken in ourselves, both heart and mind.

Without such fellow-feeling we grow cold,
Cut off from the embrace of sympathy,
Reduced to what is simply bought and sold,
Transactions without passion, without glee.

What’s tender, gentle, soft, confederate
Is best, since what I give is what I get.

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