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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Order

By Saint Francis of Assisi (1182–1226)

Translation of Maurice Francis Egan

[Our Lord Speaks]

AND though I fill thy heart with hottest love,

Yet in true order must thy heart love me,

For without order can no virtue be;

By thine own virtue, then, I from above

Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,

Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free:

The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of

The circling year move gently as a dove:

I measured all the things upon the earth;

Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,

And love to order must be truly wed.

O soul, why all this heat of little worth?

Why cast out order with no thought of care?

For by love’s heat must love be governèd?