Love is anterior to life—
Posterior to death—
Initial of Creation—
And the exponent of Earth.²
Love knows not of death
Nor calculus above.³
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care—
But for another gives its Ease,
And builds Heaven in hell’s despair—⁴
Love is Contraband in hell ‘cause
Love is Acid—that eats away bars!⁵
Love is not Love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! It is
An Ever-Fixèd mark, that looks on Tempests
And is never shaken—that Bears it out
Even to the edge of Doom!⁶
Be Loved—and be Love.⁷
Love is not consolation: it is Light—⁸
Love moves the Sun & other stars.⁹
And in the end the Love you take
Is equal to the Love you make.¹⁰
¹ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Reward of Service
² Emily Dickinson, Love is Anterior to Life
³ Sylvia Plath, Love is a Parallax
⁴ William Blake, The Clod & the Pebble
⁵ Assata Shakur, Love is Contraband in Hell
⁶ William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI
⁷ Bob Marley, Could You Be Loved
⁸ Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
⁹ Dante Alighieri, Paradiso
¹⁰ Paul McCartney & John Lennon, The End