Classic Poem

I like your love the best of all:
It does not ask things of me for love's sake,
It does not demand things of me for love's sake,
It does not send me away for love's sake,
It does not call me to itself for love's sake,
It acknowledges no debts incurred for love's sake,
It places no debts upon my heart for love's sake,
It just lets me alone, just lets love alone, for love's sake,
It just loves and lets everything else take care of itself, for love's sake:
Yes, I like your love the best of all.

I like your love the best of all:
I can feel comfortable with your love,
I can nestle up to your love like a child that draws life from the breast of its mother and cannot speak words,
I can feel at home with your love wherever I happen to be,
I can stand free of obligation in the presence of your love,
I can stand exalted in faith in the absence of your love,
I can go to bed at night knowing that your love is good for the next day,
I can take ship and sail to another world knowing that your love is good for that other world.
Is it not beautiful to belong to a love that does not make claims for itself?
Is it not beautiful to not belong to any love but to live the life of love away from the life of ownership?
Is it not beautiful to belong to a love that does not belong to you?
Yes, I like your love the best of all.

I like your love the best of all:
It does not sue for favors or coquet for attentions,
It takes what love gives when love need not bestow,
It finds love rich enough in possessing love,
It refuses to beg for love or to steal love or to take love from the duty of love,
It knows that the desert may be sterile but that deserted love can never be sterile,
It knows that love births love in prophetic inheritances,
It gives and takes without sanction, it is fair to love without law,
It does not cry an anathema upon the love that goes,
It does not fall down and worship the love that comes,
It does not time love by a clock or weigh love in a scale,
It understands that the lover is not necessary to love but that love alone is necessary to love:
Yes, I like your love the best of all

I like your love the best of all:
It never calls me for its pleasure, it never petulantly sends me away:
It is like the universe: do what I may I could not get outside of the universe:
It is like the sun: it gives me life and asks for no receipt,
It is like immortality: it gives me time and never presents a bill,
It is like so many things that are big enough to satisfy the thirst of the long enchained spirit:
It is like, Oh, your love is so much like itself—so much like love,
In whatever sorrow or joy of the day is so much like itself—so much like love,
In whatever success or failure of ambition is so much like itself—so much like love,
In whatever crime and jealousy and apostasy is so much like itself—so much like love:
It is like, Oh, your love is so much like itself—so much like love,
So much—so much—so much like itself: now there is no more any doubt about it:
I like your love the best of all.