Love and the Child

‘Why do you so clasp me,

     And draw me to your knee?

Forsooth, you do but chafe me,

     I pray you let me be:

I will be loved but now and then

     When it liketh me!’

So I heard a young child,

     A thwart child, a young child

Rebellious against love’s arms,

     Make its peevish cry.

To the tender God I turn:—

     ‘Pardon, Love most High!

For I think those arms were even Thine,

     And that child even I.’

~Francis Thompson