Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love,
I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned and have not love,
it profith me nothing.
Love suffereth long and is kind.
Love envieth not.
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doeth not behave itself unseemly.
Seeketh not her own.
Is not easily provoked.
Thinketh no evil.
Rejoiceth not in inequity, but rejoiceth in the truth.
Bareth all things.
Believeth all things.
Hopeth all things.
Endureth all things.
Love never fails.
But where there be propheses they shall fail,
whether there be tounges, they shall cease,
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I fought as a child,
but when I became a man I put away childish things.
For now we see though a glass dark plain, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall I know even also as I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love - these three, but the greatest of these is love.

see also the short version of this poem from
Trois Couleurs Bleu - Song for the Unification of Europe


www.davidpbrown.co.uk