Dilemma

Beauty is plenteous in the world
In mind and voice and face,
Yet stricture tells me that I must
Old love with new replace;

However many wise there be,
However many fair,
Yet only one may I enfold
Within my heart to bear.

I feel a spark but then recoil
As back by guilt I’m wrenched:
“True love loves only once,” it says,
“Now choose!” The spark is quenched.

But where is truth if we are ‘true’?
Are all our hearts so small
That if we cannot love but one
We cannot love at all?

If sons and daughters can be loved
And friends their hearts’ warmth share,
Why may not lovers thus behave
When new love kindles there?

Then I will love as sings my heart,	Lovers do not divide by three,
And strive to tie a knot	Lips only meet in pairs;
In struggling strands of branching lives	No cloth is spun from passion’s cord,
And, hold or break, flinch not.	It weaveth only snares.

Reuben Thomas
Adelaide, 27th–28th July 1998

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.

Last updated 2019/10/28