PAD 9: The Castle of Love

 

Cardiff Castle in Cardiff, Wales. Source: Roman Babakin/AdobeStock

PAD Challenge, Day 9 prompt: for the second two-for-Tuesday prompt, write a love poem and/or an anti-love poem.

The Castle of Love

"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up nor awaken love until it please" (Song of Solomon 8:4).

Modesty is more than clothing,
Though clothing’s the right place to start,
Because clothing will veil the body
To guard both the mind and the heart.

Modesty offers protection,
The custody of one’s own eyes,
To never look over a lady
In a way her father would despise.

For modesty is the deep moat,
The first of the castle’s defense,
So the image won’t come through the eyes
And then in the heart lead to sin.

Chastity is, then, the wall
Of the castle that is one’s own soul,
The second of the three defenses
That lead to true love as their goal.

Chastity means not to lust,
Not desire inordinately
That which one has not a right to:
Another person’s body.

That lust leads to sins of the heart
Before corporal adultery,
And it also leads to fornication
For those who are not yet married.

If a true man can keep his own eyes
And his heart and his body well chaste,
That man will more easily conquer
Because he's open to God’s grace.

Purity is third defense,
It rules all the thoughts of the heart,
It is the tower of the castle,
Here the vict’ry in battle will start.

The principal key here is love,
To preserve one’s treasure without loss,
To the glory of God, who hath bought us
By the Blood of His Son on the Cross.

We remember that marriéd love,
Is beautiful, stronger than death;
This love, it should not be awakened
Until after marriage it’s blessed.