Fairness is metallic. It is joyless. It is good only by default — only because it is not evil. It is the line that delineates what is good to do and what is not, but it is just the line — not the path. It says, "Beyond this point are higher things, better things. Beyond this point is love." Fairness is the line — the closest thing to doing evil we can still call "doing good."

I only just discovered this poem. But already it is a favorite. I believe MacDonald here is writing from his experience as a father of eleven children—four of whom preceded him in death, along with some of his earlier grandchildren. This man knew suffering. But he also knew hope.
Read, and learn from a man, embattled by the continual march of time, who grew the more wise for it.