Love's Rejoinder

Love's Rejoinder

Why do I love you? Why do rivers run?
Why does the north wind rage, the south wind sigh?
Why loves the earth to bask beneath the sun?
These follow but their nature, so do I.

How do the flowers love every flower its season?
Why loves the far-off hill its opal mist?
The birds sing out their love, but give no reason
It is enough for these that they exist.

As comes in spring the murmur of the dove,
As song of lark that cleaves the summer sky,
My heart so sings, so clings to thee, my love,
And I can give no better reason why.

It is not for your beauty, nor for pleasure.
Your matchless form, nor yet your balanced mind;
For each of these is but an earthly measure
For that which leaves earth's measures all behind.

Love, life, and death are of the things that come
Without our will, our effort, or our art;
In their unbidden presence man is dumb,
For these are masters never man could thwart.

What do we know of love? - its why, or whence?
We only know it flashes from the gloom
Of things outside our sanction or our sense;
And when it does we stand beside our doom.

Under the rich man's roof, or poor man's rafter.
When love has entered in, for ill or well.
That moment stamps itself on man's hereafter,
Whatever name he gives it - heaven or hell.

For though it cannot be but love's first seed
Should fall on earthly soil, and earth must handsel it,
Transplanted into man's immortal creed,
Time may defy eternity to cancel it.

And though love lies concealed in blinding light
That baffles reason, mocks the poet's prayer
For power to tell its infinite depth and height.
Content, we still can breathe its blessed air.

Let it suffice for you and me, that each
Heart knows its secret, loves it not less well.
Because it lies too deep, too dear for speech -
It would be less than love if we could tell.