O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,
Be all – worlds dissolve into your
       stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter
        than cold stares –
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.

I’m drenched
in the flood
which has yet to come

I’m *******
in the prison
which has yet to exist



Not having played
the game of chess
I’m already the checkmate



Not having tasted
a single cup of your wine
I’m already drunk



Not having entered
the battlefield

I’m already wounded and slain



I no longer
know the difference
between image and reality



Like the shadow
I am

And

I am not

You were a beautiful triangle
In love with an old,
Stubborn square.

You deserve a brighter spark
Than mine.
You are fireworks, I am a

Foot-warming bonfire;
Embers tired and content with
Being such.

Grow. Live. Light up the sky.
I will admire you from here.
I have roots to outgrow your

Feathers.
Holding back?
I'll never wish your wings away.

Find pleasure in mud or gold.
I am too old a judge to speak.
Thank you, triangle.

You have three points to
My four. That's age.
Nothing more.

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

XXI

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem ‘a cuckoo-song,’ as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, ‘Speak once more—thou lovest! ‘Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

XXV

A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace
Were changed to long despairs, till God’s own grace
Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature doth precipitate,
While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.

Love has no cause;
it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.

Lover and Loving are inseparable
and timeless.



Although I may try to describe Love
when I experience it I am speechless.

Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place
where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.



Every moment is made glorious
by the light of Love.