Never tell your lover you love love.
She will think her eyes
Must compete with a whole forest of sighs,
Each sigh betokening music.
She will think her one face
Must be compared to a human race
Of faces—when you tell your lover you love love.
She will think her mind
Must exist in differences gently, or be unkind,
And she will have to stand blindly
As the world sighs upon you kindly,
And each sigh of the forest, perpetual,
Will bring, each morning, a new nuptial.
She will know the spring, with its silver floods,
Will laugh beside her dark moods,
If you tell her you love love.
She will think the flood of sighs that pours
Over you, compares with how she adores.
She will think her own sighs
Will be compared to all—and comparisons never die.
For her, sighs will turn to roars.
Her face, she thinks, must lie
Beside a world of faces: even yours.
