Thursday, May 12, 2011

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.

5 comments:

  1. Lovely. And your addition is pretty good too...

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  2. i love elizabeth browning too:) she gives words to my feelings when i cannot find ways to express them myself

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  3. @wiselar Glad you enjoyed it and ThanQ. xx

    @acock... (LOL) Isn't she amazing!! Viva EBB :)

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  4. Someone please teach me poetry.

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  5. You just survived your "first" class :) Poetry 101:Read and learn :D

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