Classic Poem

When you defer to love in a book,
When you feel that there must be something wrong with love,
When you look around you wondering if those who see you may not impeach love,
When you try love by some measure not a measure of love,
When the opinion of the world takes the place of the opinion of love,
When to love is thought dangerous and to not love is thought safe,
When you wonder if the legislature may not set the bounds of love,
When you defer to love in a book about love and doubt of love in a life full of love,
Then I call you to order, then I return you rejected to your soul,
You whose tried years have failed because they were afraid of their love
Was love only meant to be talked about and then put away?
Was love only meant to be ashamed of and hurried out of sight?
Is love according to law all right and love according to life all wrong?
Are you brave with love in print and cowardly with love in your blood?
Do you think that anything else may be bravely avowed and that love is not to be bravely avowed?
Are you willing to consort with love in the shut and barred night and unwilling to consort with love in the wide open day?
You tremble for fear that some one has heard you speak honestly about love —
The woman in you trembles for fear seeing the man,
The man in you trembles for fear seeing the woman.
Do you only keep love for special hours and places and only love when you think nobody is looking?
I say that if there is anything wrong when you love the wrong is not in love but the wrong is in you,
I say that it may be safe to doubt any thing else but that it is never safe to doubt love,
I say that you may doubt your money and your fame and your virtue but that you may not doubt your love:
I say such things to you with a hot tongue so that you may know I am dead in earnest about love,
I say that you are in grave danger of destruction when you run away from love in life,
When you defer to love in a book.