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ANOTHER
Love not if you desire a quiet life;
Love not if you would soundly sleep at night;
Love not if you would shun perpetual strife;
Love not—or take your leave of all delight;
For Love is ever man's most cruel master,
The source of every trouble, every woe,
A fountain of perpetual disaster
From whence alone the deepest sorrows flow:—
Love not if you would soundly sleep at night;
Love not if you would shun perpetual strife;
Love not—or take your leave of all delight;
For Love is ever man's most cruel master,
The source of every trouble, every woe,
A fountain of perpetual disaster
From whence alone the deepest sorrows flow:—
Thus do I rail on love, and yet I love.
And cannot from love's tyranny break free.
Prizing a faithless woman's smile above
All blessings else—for I my weird must dree:
Man born of woman needs must her adore,
And as she doth command him sink or soar.
And cannot from love's tyranny break free.
Prizing a faithless woman's smile above
All blessings else—for I my weird must dree:
Man born of woman needs must her adore,
And as she doth command him sink or soar.
LOVE'S COMPENSATIONS
Love! how unhappy in his fate is he
Who never hath thy wondrous power confessed.
Or never ventured on thy stormy sea,
Fearing too much to break his quiet rest:
Perchance he so escapes much bitter pain,
Yet had he loved with fearless heart and soul,
Surely in that there had been priceless gain,
Outweighing far whate'er might be of dole.
Expansive, not repressive, is true life,
Man passionless is scarcely man at all,
We win our way to peace through toil and strife,
Nectar he shall not taste who shuns life's gall:
They never truly live who love disown—
A truth to poets and to lovers known.
Who never hath thy wondrous power confessed.
Or never ventured on thy stormy sea,
Fearing too much to break his quiet rest:
Perchance he so escapes much bitter pain,
Yet had he loved with fearless heart and soul,
Surely in that there had been priceless gain,
Outweighing far whate'er might be of dole.
Expansive, not repressive, is true life,
Man passionless is scarcely man at all,
We win our way to peace through toil and strife,
Nectar he shall not taste who shuns life's gall:
They never truly live who love disown—
A truth to poets and to lovers known.
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