If Poetry be the Fruit of Love...

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

~Shakespeare Sonnet 116

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
~John Keats

Merit in Meaning

‘tis not a love worth loving
If it borders on a task.

‘tis not a love worth having
If, for a return, must ask.

‘tis not a love worth keeping
If two merely play the game.

‘tis not a love worth quitting
If true loving be its name.