I’d rather have the Want of you—
The rich, elusive Taunt of you,
Forever and forever and forever Unconfessed—
Than claim an alien comfort of any other breast.²
Love, thou art High: I cannot climb thee—
But, were it Two, who knows but We …³
Let me hold your Heart like a flower,
Lest it Bloom & Collapse.⁴
Lover’s don’t meet somewhere along the way:
They’ve been in one another’s Souls all along—⁵
How do I Love thee? Let me count the ways: I Love thee
To the Depth, Breadth & Height my soul can reach!⁶
Love is the only way to Grasp another human
In the Innermost Core of the personality.⁷
The Supreme sight on this
Black earth: I say it is the one you Love!⁸
There is no thing that Lasts—not one—
When we have turned to Clay, but this:
You Love Me—all the rest fades with the world away.⁹
Whatever happens, those who have learned to
Love one another have made their way to
The Lasting World, and will not leave—
Whatever happens.¹⁰
¹ E.E. Cummings, I Carry Your Heart With Me
² Angela Morgan, Choice
³ Emily Dickinson, Love Thou Art High
⁴ Anne Sexton, Rapunzel
⁵ Rumi tr. unknown, In One Another’s Souls
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese
⁷ Viktor E. Frankl tr. Ilse Lasch, Man’s Search for Meaning
⁸ Sappho tr. Willis Barnstone, Supreme Sight on the Black Earth
⁹ John Bennett, Her Answer
¹⁰ Wendell Berry, Whatever Happens