I have loved, a worthy lover!

When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

I recently bumped into one of my favourite poets from the 19th century (Where?? on the streets stupid) and she defined love in a way I hadn't understood before:

Unless you can think, when the song is done,

No other is soft in the rhythm;

Unless you can feel, when left by One,

That all men else go with him;

Unless you can know, when unpraised by his breath,

That your beauty itself wants proving;

Unless you can swear "For life, for death!" -

Oh, fear to call it loving!

Unless you can muse in a crowd all day

On the absent face that fixed you;

Unless you can love, as the angels may,

With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;

Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,

Through behoving and unbehoving;

Unless you can die when the dream is past -

Oh, never call it loving!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This judicious definition took me back 4 months ago when I was so distraught over the loss of a man I had grown to call 'distant-lover'

Within me I search words to describe him by

But all I manage, is to cry

I go about my life as though he never existed

Though deep within, he never exited

I never loved another or 'felt' loved by another

so in sync as; he and I together

I will outgrow this someday, to myself I think

But no denying that I am weak

I will need the universe in its entirety at my aid

For I am and always will be afraid

To love, have, give, only to lose, hurt and pain

Unless it is him, that I fall for again

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. With this I am content.