Classic Poem

Love has been sung a thousand ways —
— So let it be;
The songs ascending in your praise
Through all my days
— Are three.

Your cloud-white body first I sing;
— Your love was heaven's blue,
And I, a bird, flew carolling
In ring on ring
— Of you.

Your nearness is the second song;
— When God began to be,
And bound you strongly, right or wrong,
With his own thong,
— To me.

But oh, the song, eternal, high,
— That tops these two! —
You live forever, you who die,
I am not I