Anonymous poem: "The True Gift" : Christ in Poetry

I dedicate this poem to the memory of my mother Evelyn M. Gilmer (1923-2016). She was devoutly Christian. "The True Gift," the author of which is anonymous, was one of her favorite poems.


THE TRUE GIFT
Anonymous

I gave a beggar from my scanty store
Of hard-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold
And hungry, as before.

I gave the Christ, and through that Christ of mine
He found himself, a man, supreme, divine,
Fed, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold,
And now he begs no more.


Source: Christ in Poetry (1952), an anthology compiled and edited by Thomas Curtis Clark and Hazel Davis Clark

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