Love

Thomas Kibble Hervey (1804–1859)

THERE are who say the lover’s heart

Is in the loved one’s merged;

O, never by love’s own warm art

So cold a plea was urged!

No!—hearts that love hath crowned or crossed

Love fondly knits together;

But not a thought or hue is lost

That made a part of either.

*****

It is an ill-told tale that tells

Of “hearts by love made one;”

He grows who near another’s dwells

More conscious of his own;

In each spring up new thoughts and powers

That mid love’s warm, clear weather,

Together tend like climbing flowers,

And, turning, grow together.

Such fictions blink love’s better part,

Yield up its half of bliss;

The wells are in the neighbor heart

When there is thirst in this:

There findeth love the passion-flowers

On which it learns to thrive,

Makes honey in another’s bowers,

But brings it home to hive.

Love’s life is in its own replies,—

To each low beat it beats,

Smiles back the smiles, sighs back the sighs,

And every throb repeats.

Then, since one loving heart still throws

Two shadows in love’s sun,

How should two loving hearts compose

And mingle into one?