Classic Poem

Come, he said, I love you; I do not know why I love but I love;
Something from you to me, something I feel but do not see,
Prevails on my older self, lifting me clear of the earth,
Not severing the dead from the living,
But making the dead and the living one.

Shall I tell you, O my brother?—shall I offer what today you could not take?
No—no: for the hour, for the day, past this sundown—only silence and love:
Only the hand that reaches, only the hand that takes.

But tomorrow: O the morrow!
With the first gray and flush on the treetops, on the wings of the new day,
I know, O I know,
You will look into my face, I will look into your face, you seeing in me, I seeing in you,
That which was always promised,
That which cautiously was long denied,
That which forever now makes day and night and death and life and good and evil
Laws of the one soul, strains of the one song,
Softer than softness, stronger than strength,
Ample for boundless continuations.