Here’s one of my favourite poems from memory–received from a doctor in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda–author unknown–which I enjoy reciting
Love of Mankind
Love of humanity is not enough
Are you prepared to love the living stuff
In man or woman that you meet
In shops or houses, cafe’s and the street
Are you prepared to put warm intimacy
into chance contacts between you and me
Are you prepared to love the noble and base
The raging snarl and smile transfigured face
Ugly and beautiful, old and young
The tender phrase and adder-darting tongue
Can you say truthfully that you’d be kind
To the perverse and diseased in mind
The sick in body wrecked by poverty
and doomed by struggles never to be free
Will you join a new crusade and
dare the soul destroying dragon of despair
Will you defend the cause of sweet delight
Against the dark battalions of the night
Will you give homage to each unique mind
Foolish or wise
Then go and love mankind