Love is Lord of All

Poem by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (480–524 AD), Roman scholar, Christian philosopher, and author of the famous work De consolatione philosophiae  in which the pursuit of wisdom and the love of God are described as the true sources of human happiness.

Why are Nature's changes bound
To a fixed and ordered round?
What to leagued peace hath bent
Every warring element?
Wherefore doth the rosy morn
Rise on Phoebus' car upborne?
Why should Phoebe rule the night,
Led by Hesper's guiding light?
What the power that doth restrain
In his place the restless main,
That within fixed bounds he keeps,
Nor o'er earth in deluge sweeps?
Love it is that holds the chains,
Love o'er sea and earth that reigns;
Love whom else but sovereign Love?
Love, high lord in heaven above!
Yet should he his care remit,
All that now so close is knit
In sweet love and holy peace,
Would no more from conflict cease,
But with strife's rude shock and jar
All the world's fair fabric mar.

Tribes and nations Love unites
By just treaty's sacred rites;
Wedlock's bonds he sanctifies
By affection's softest ties.
Love appointed, as is due,
Faithful laws to comrades true
Love, all-sovereign Love! - oh, then,
Ye are blest, ye sons of men,
If the love that rules the sky
In your hearts is throned on high!