Patience

Patience

Don’t nurse resentment
Don’t bear a grudge
Don’t take a position
And then refuse to budge.

Don’t lob missiles
Don’t don defensive arms
Be ashamed to add to
World strife and war’s alarms.

And yet, thou shalt not is cold comfort
When we are hot with hate.
And who will be our friend in need
When the enemy is at the gate?

Patience is that quiet moon
Which calms the fretful tide
And tiptoes gently glimmering
Where jagged rocks hide.

Saint Paul accounted Charity
Sovereign virtue from above
But we may practise patience
When we cannot reach to Love.

We think of patience facing out
A duty to our neighbours
But it also smiles inwardly
On all our mental labours.

It helps us let go fixed ideas
For the world is big and wide
And winks at many a fancied hurt
To our foolish pride.

Nor need we fear that patience
Requires a saint’s pure heart;
Impatience is our failsafe guide
To where to make a start.