Discourse on Love
And I: “My Lord, when I was setting out,
I didn’t realize I was upon
A journey of such gravity, as what
Your words implied; but now that I have gone
Along the crucifixion, I’ve begun
To think the undertaking may well be
Too grave and serious for anyone,
The moreso for a dullard wretch like me,
Cowardly, and who understands not what he see.”
And he: “It may well be that you have wandered
Into the path unwittingly, but you
Have reached the underworld; do not be hindered
In keeping to primary causes true,
Though you have bit off more than you can chew
In your own estimation: nevermind,
For, having started out, you must go through
What torments lie ahead, which you may find
Survivable, as my Commedia should remind.
“Out in the life that is a race to death
So many people to themselves pretend
That they, while yet the body still draws breath,
Would like to come here; and so they, my friend,
As many pleasant hours’ deception spend--
When very few, while they remain alive
Are given leave to come here, to descend
Clothed in their mortal bodies. You must strive
To keep true to your path, although you not survive.
“For what is there in death, besides this place?
All souls, when they have died, must enter here,
As even some, when they live in disgrace
Which happens when the soul is insincere,
Lose contact with their souls, which souls appear
Bodiless in this nether realm; although
According as your mind sees, we may wear
The vestiges of flesh, yet even so
Observe, they cast no shadow, even as we go.”
And as he spoke these words, I realized
That though we two were seated on the plain
Beside the river’s bank, I was surprised
I hadn’t noticed it, and then again
Thought back to all the souls that I had seen:
Though seeming fleshly all, but only I
Had cast a shadow—in the world of men
What we take for a commonplace, falls by
The wayside; and I asked, “You mean that I might die.”
And he: “I think that you can take my word,
That you should meet your death within this place
Remains unlikely; which if it occurred
Would only mean your soul remained to trace
Its path again, and that which you must face
In torments surely lie ahead no less;
But if you now return unto that race
As far as you have come, to so digress,
Then there death will await you, you don’t have to guess.”
There is no turning back, his words implied,
Even as Lot’s wife; though it made me sad,
Which Dante must have felt, because I sighed,
And he said unto me: “It isn’t bad,
For when the journey’s done you shall be glad.
That which you undertake, though sorrow, strife
Be yours, as one in poet’s mantle clad,
Is nothing less than very human life
Run by all mortals. Love cuts deeper than a knife.
“Even as Jesus died for us, and shed
His blood that we might live free from our sins,
So men must all, for they will soon be dead
Along the race that no one ever wins.
Not any human heart, when it begins
To love which is to live, forgoes its portion
Of sorrow which is man’s inheritance
Since ever Eve’s and Adam’s fateful torsion,
Which led to banishment, and humankind’s distortion.”
And I: “Then isn’t it better to have
No wish for love?” I told him of the women
That I had seen, who thirsty seem to crave
What is the drink of life to any human,
Though, as though guided by a vagrant omen
Themselves from its procurement they have severed--
“I know the thirst for love is very common,
But would not we be best, if, when so fevered
With thirst for it, to stifle passion we endeavored?”
And he: “It is impossible; within
All human breasts that at the breast have nurtured,
That have known mother’s love deeper than skin,
The need is there, for love, which can’t be sutured,
Which can’t be given up, though one is tortured,
For love bears no retrenchments, and with love
Sorrows must come, as summer’s apple orchard
Becomes in winter, desolation’s grove;
Love bears this dual nature which none can remove.
“As for those women, I believe you mean
That stay within the pit of frowardness,
Who have forsaken love, and so demean
Themselves, though what the cause is they can’t guess:
Did they not in contumacy so dress
Themselves they would be fit to be a bride,
But thirst for love is never rendered less
Although it has been fully satisfied,
And they from sorrow even so could never hide.
“In fact, had they not chosen to remain
Self-satisfied within the pool of sloth,
But loved and been loved, they would know the pain
Of satisfaction and bereavement both;
Which is perhaps the reason they are loath
To act in such a way as but invites
Love which provides a fertile undergrowth
To all our human longings it requites,
Into their hearts: for less are fantasizing’s blights.
“True love is cruel; a blade which cuts both as
It enters and it leaves, and leaves its wound
Forever on the heart once for always,
No matter that the soul receiving swooned,
Or that, in piercing, it nor made a sound.
Yet souls such as those women’s which avoid
The opportunity for love, yet found
That they without it were not overjoyed,
But bitterly resentful at what they’ve destroyed.
“Along with them, there is a pit of men
Of those that were seducers”—here his eyes
Focused on mine more gravely, as again
His words continued, “who deeply despise
The thought of love as something full of lies,
Who seek their conquests which is but a way
Their heart avoidance of the issue tries
To get, which has to fail, as even they
May fall in love, by chance, as a seducer may.”
He spoke no further words on that, but said
“It’s best that we continue,” and so I
Stood up with him, who has so long been dead,
Restraining tears, though I wanted to cry,
Distraught and comforted, with him nearby
Who is my master, insofar the verse
That I have written, if not aiming high,
Holds any meaning for the world; far worse
Than I one time had hoped for following love’s course.
But as he said, my business must be but
To make my headway on the present path,
And not to be diverted but to what
Are worldly matters, worth nor praise nor wrath,
Themselves superfluous; for so he hath
Implied in bearing himself wholly grave,
His whole life story but the aftermath
Of an event in love, such as few have,
As even I received, forever after slave.
And I: “My lord, you know what motivates me:
A woman I have known and who has been
As though a wife to me. Her love creates me,
Though for a while I felt that love was sin;
Whose debt, forever after, I am in,
Because she taught me of the husband/wife
Relation, which is very much akin
To that between the Lord and man, as if
The one were patterned by the other’s hieroglyph.”
And he: “That is correct. The love between
A man and woman, is but a reflection
Of human love for God, which, if not seen
Must leave the heart alone without protection;
Thereby God makes a natural selection
Among his followers, and even those
Who scorned his love, may later see election
By their own souls, to seek what they had chose
Formerly to decry; for so life’s pattern goes.”
And I: “When we are young, it isn’t odd
That we are taught to worship, and believe;
But one has a relationship with God
That’s very different, when he has to leave
The ramparts of his childhood, which deceive
Him as to nature’s order, in the world,
Though they came from his mother even. We’ve
A different kind of love when we are hurled
Into our destiny, or when we are imperiled.
“The woman that I loved taught me to love;
Because she was submissive unto me
I learned I must submit to God above,
Whereby submitting, I am rendered free,
Though those who love the world may not agree.
For love is not, to me, a worldly thing,
That can be purchased on a spending spree,
Or even begged of favor from a king,
But rather, limitless, beyond all cornering.”
And he: “You say you knew this woman as
Your wife, and yet the two of you weren’t married,
Is that correct?” And I: “It came to pass
Because of that that everything miscarried,
For when I should have acted, then I tarried,
By when it was too late. Within my mind,
I acted as a man distracted, harried,
With better things to do, and so I find
In retrospect, though loving, I was wholly blind.”
“It’s good that you accept the blame you bear,”
Said he, “but as for your love’s restitution,
You can’t expect to ever find it here,
Within the underrealm, though contribution
Here may be found to clearing the pollution
Of errant patterns your mind may accept
Even unknown to you, through dissolution,
For we in self-deceit were born adept,
Children of Eve, since ever man from Eden stepped.”
And I: “Beside her there was only one
I ever loved, with purest love sincere
And genuine, though childhood is long gone,
A star by which love’s bark I tried to steer,
Though I perhaps had not seen it so clear
As her by whom your own path had been mapped,
But such is childhood, such loves as endear
Us to them as a boy, we may be apt
To lose from sight, as to life’s changes we adapt.
“Master, I loved her from when I was eight,
And I don’t need to tell you all the story,
Because that love my life shall demarcate
Though I may not attain the poet’s glory;
And every verse I write, as laudatory
Of love, in some way is but the reflection
Of that which, though my memory grows hoary,
I felt for her, though love beyond detection
Of any who observed. She gave my life direction.
“I loved her till the time when I had entered
On high school, when a boy becomes a man,
Whereat my flighty heart was often centered
On this or that young lady; clearly an
Inferior attraction, each one, than
The one whom I had loved so faithfully,
And of whose love I was custodian,
Which first love was forgotten, so, by me,
At high school, as though it had never seemed to be.
“I lost sight of my love for other things,
As in his early manhood young man feels
So many different passions, each which brings
Him into new experience, and steals
His time from him as to and fro he reels
From this or that adventure, and I had
My share of them, but none which greatly seals
My destiny as she, if I may add
Whose name was Bonnie, that I loved when just a lad.”
Hearing the mention of her name, he sighed,
For I knew he was thinking other things,
“But she was never destined for my bride,
As I flew from her with untempered wings
Intemperate, though young men from the stings
Of some of their adventures don’t recover,
And I, if not into so many flings,
Yet in my own way quite became the rover,
Forgetting my first love, as something dead and over.
“Little did I know, that the seed, once planted
Within a heart, though it be choked by weeds,
Is not so easily dislodged, supplanted,
Though we may make the effort in our deeds,
As man unto his baser nature cedes
Authority, than rather to that love
Remembered from his youth; but that impedes
His true love’s progress merely, which may prove
No more than detriment, if willed by God above.
“So as a man, still young, but older than
A man who is in school, when sometime later
I felt that early passion, as you can
Imagine, and its purity was greater
Than any since I had become the traitor
To my first self, well, as you may have guessed
That to my second love was instigator
As by a path circuitous progressed--
But here my speaking shames me; keeping quiet is best.”
And he: “That which you’ve tried to do may strike
You as immoral, even worthy shame,
But I assure you, speak howso you like,
For just along this path all poets came
Who have preceded you, though great in name,
Or though consigned unto obscurity,
Which, for the soul involved, is just the same;
For in this realm, the truth of poetry
Has been revealed, and matters less than people see.
“Out in the world the words a poet speaks
May have importance, for a time, but none
Unto himself; save as such meaning leaks
Backwards across the lines that he has done,
But wholly unperceived by anyone,
And for that he has greater poets than
Himself to turn to, who more neatly spun
The tale of love, than in his verse he can:
But you retain the memory whence love began.
“To have known such a love, and but to trace
Its lineaments, although the ink may blot,
Shall keep the wide world staring at its face,
Though they don’t really know what they have got,
Because love is, but as it is, is not.
Retrace a fond description of your love,
Her face, her eyes, you need no other plot,
As though it were a fiction that you strove
But to embellish, empty fabrication wove.”
And I: “So I have felt. The love I had
Surpassed all in her beauty, but not just
Her outward lineaments, which were not bad,
But in her inner spirit, whereby lust
Was tamed and calmed, but not so that it must
Shrivel and die; for lust that has been tempered
By love within that union of sweet trust
Transforms its substance, never being hampered,
Whereby it is sustained, instead of being dampered.”
And he: “The pleasures of the body have
Waylaid you in their time, it seems to me?”
And I: “My lord, before I was a slave
To all the body’s proddings■ urgently
Impelling me to places that would be
Unworthy of my mention; I had no
Conception that the heart’s agility
Could make me solve the problem even so,
For many years had passed, before I came to know.”
And he: “Try as a man might to advise
A younger one, his son, perhaps, what kind
Of deep obstruction in his pathway lies,
None ever can; for each soul is consigned
To learn it for himself, which shapes the mind
Into its many different variants;
But rest contented, all men equal find
The problem so perplexing, what each wants
At variance with what before his view presents.
“Try as we might, we talk in parables,
Hints and suggestions, or else is created
Monstrosities worse than imagined hells,
Though hell on earth is so perpetuated,
To which it intimately is related--
The words we leave behind but intimate,
But each soul on its own alone is fated
To try its skill at making sense of fate,
As even with the Gospel truth forever great.
“I see you have adjudged sins of the body
Really aren’t sinful in themselves, but rather
To the extent the soul may act ungodly,
In distancing itself from God the Father.
To fornicate is not so great to gather
Forever admonition from all men,
Except the soul that goes that road go farther
From God and find itself trapped in a pen,
Which gotten into can be hard to leave again.
“To fornicate is not so great as murder,
For murder may deprive us of a man,
Yet fornication renders law absurder
Than chaos, when allowed, over a span
Of time to so corrupt a healthy clan;
Because when fornication reigns supreme
Between our men and women, it but can
Reduce all love into a fancied dream
Deserving mockery, while money gains esteem.”
And I: “These issues have been no small weight
Upon my mind, as even so they dragged
My soul into extremes, since I was eight,
Nor have I of success today yet bragged
In finding resolution; but unfagged
By former failures of my moral part,
I learned, as you say, every soul is plagued
By certain perturbations of the heart,
But that regeneration with the Lord doth start.
“For I believe he looks upon us kindly
Despite transgressions such as may occur
In any human life—please don’t remind me,
Whose own transgressions in ten thousands were,
Or at least very high—which shouldn’t spur
Our souls to seek to revel in transgressing,
But rather, gently prod us to defer
Unto such love his law has been expressing
For these millenniums, without too great repressing.
“An errant such as that Marquis de Sade
Who made a habit of making transgressions
Explicitly against the word of God,
Both in imagined and in factual sessions
As we may know from reading his confessions,
Explicitly transgressed against the letter
Of law in so directing all his passions
Because law’s spirit he had not known better,
And so became crime’s perpetrator and abettor.”
And he: “Exactly so.” While we conversed
We hadn’t stopped from walking for a minute
Beside the river that must quench all thirst,
For God created it and did begin it
So that our sorrows might be all drowned in it;
And while we strolled I noticed that the trees
Along our route were filled with birds, a linnet
Perhaps it was flew by me in the breeze,
While keeping pace, such tranquil feelings my heart seize.
So I continued speaking: “I had felt
Myself to have been an abomination,
Although before the Lord’s throne I had knelt,
Because of having fallen to temptation,
And giving him my heartfelt explanation;
But now I understand, I had been caught
As by virtue of moral education,
Because while my path truly had been fraught
With great temptations, some things I was falsely taught.”
And he: “Such is the case when we rely
Upon the law as our sole instrument,
Our sole adjudicator, creed, whereby
We measure as inflexibly, unbent,
Though there are always questions of intent
To be considered. God who is the judge
Is slow to anger; if that we repent
It makes him happy, and he likes to nudge,
But doesn’t rashly banish with an unbending grudge.”
And I: “The passions of the body were
A spite to me so long, but as a candle
Is lost beside a bonfire, so in her
My passions, though love proved too hot to handle,
And I upon her love proved myself vandal
Because I was unfit, so I found out
To even stoop and help her tie her sandal,
Yet having known a love that was devout,
In losing her I tried my energies to rout.
“She taught me how to love her as a man,
And I found out, a man must have control
Of his own passions first, before he can
Take charge of any other’s body, soul,
As woman must surrender to man whole;
For if a man remains a slave to sex,
It will preclude him from his highest goal
As even from his lowest, and so vex
His heart’s ambitions, though it may his muscles flex.
“When circumstances saw us separated
I gained in strength, instead of rather losing,
For her sweet love had so regenerated
My utter being, that love has had no closing
As easily had been my first supposing,
For I have learned a man must be the master
Of his own self, before he go proposing
To master any other, which disaster
Surely invites, though men proceed there fast and faster.
“She gave herself to me, but she was firm
That in commanding I must also love
The Lord, which prospect early made me squirm
Because I felt I didn’t love enough,
And so our road together started tough,
But as the time wore on so love saw smoothed
Our difficulties, as the very stuff
Of love, like yeast, expanded, calmed and soothed
Our hearts—though later came a monster fully toothed.”
And he: “If she had not taught you that lesson
Then you had never made it to this river,
Which fact is fine and good, but doesn’t lessen
Our moment’s impetus. Each soul is striver
For that which but true-love can help deliver,
But sometimes souls, in seeking good, fall prey,
And, though their torment be to scald or shiver,
In each extreme the soul can fall astray,
As you had learned, or else you would have her today.”
“Master,” I said, in words that seemed to choke,
“I know not by what impetus I fell
Astray,” and here the tears that welled now broke
The ramparts of their dam, and fell pell-mell
Profusely more than words could ever quell,
Because his words a tender chord did strike
Within my heart, though what I couldn’t tell
And I had no way to shore up the dyke,
But even as we walked, wept like a little tyke.
