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First Line: Three things would I bring to you
Last Line: The keen, swift faith that god is good.
Alternate Author Name(s): Burt, Struthers
Subject(s): Gifts & Giving


Three things would I bring to you,
Bring as a man to his mother returning;
A heart that is young despite the years;
The same old unfulfilled yearning;
And all in all, let be what would,
The keen, swift faith that God is good.

For these things do I owe to you,
Taught me once when I was a boy;
And only the poor in heart forget
In graver times what they knew in joy,
Or think since their own small world is sad,
That the heart of the world is aught but glad.

Love of towers I learned from you,
Skyward held like hopes of men;
Love of bells across the fields
Heard at dusk intoned -- and then
Just the way a yellow light
Fell from a window in the night.

The world is a world of truth, I know,
And man must live by the truth, or die;
But truth is neither a poor dried thing
Nor a strumpet, tawdry, gorgeous lie;
But just the fact, that by doing and giving,
Young dreams come true while a man is living.

So I would bring three gifts to you,
Got from you by loving and learning;
A heart that is young despite the years;
The same old unfulfilled yearning;
And all in all, let be what would,
The keen, swift faith that God is good.





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