BROTHER JUNIPER

As unto Francis Poverty, So Folly was a bride to thee. Not the jade that fashions quips For the smiles of mocking lips, And in the face of stony Death Capers till she’s out of breath, But the maid that moves and sings About divinely foolish things, She that gives her substance all For love, and laughs to find it small, She that drew God’s Son to be A butt, a jest on Calvary, And ’neath the leper’s guise doth know The King in his incognito. The world is grown too wise, and we Go our sad ways sensibly. O, would that our lean souls might win Some grace of thine, God’s harlequin, Whose days were lavished like fool’s gold Upon His pleasures manifold. “Would God,” cried Francis, on his knees, “I had a forest of such trees!”