What Is Love
A love all-commanding, all-withstanding
Through a year is my love;
A grief darkly hiding, starkly biding
Without let or remove;
Of strength a sharp straining, past sustaining
Wheresoever I rove,
A force still extending without ending
Before and around and above.

Of Heaven 'tis the brightest amazement,
The blackest abasement of Hell,
A struggle for breath with a spectre,
In nectar a choking to death;
'Tis a race with Heaven's lightning and thunder,
Then Champion Feats under Moyle's water,
'Tis pursuing the cuckoo, the wooing
Of Echo, the Rock's airy daughter.

Till my red lips turn ashen,
My light limbs grow leaden,
My heart loses motion,
In Death my eyes deaden,
So is my love and my Passion,
So is my ceaseless devotion
To him to whom I gave them,
To him who will not have them.

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