Poems (Coolidge)/Sympatica

by Helen Elizabeth Coolidge

SYMPATICA

There is no word in our cold tongue
 That seems to voice this gift so rare;
I borrow that I may express
 A charm that oft can lighten care.

So much it holds in its embrace,
 Of kindly word and deed and thought;
It is not tenderness alone,
 But gentleness with tact inwrought.

It is to love as though thine eye
 Another's inner life could see;
To strengthen, though no word may ask
 The faltering one to lean on thee.

It is to feel because one knows
 The need that, constant, presses sore;
To lose in other lives one's own,
 The precious spikenard thus to pour.

And none this gift so great may own
 Save he who sits at Jesus' feet;
For, loving Him with all one's heart,
 Each life another's life may meet.