The Definition of Love
Andrew Marvell
1621 to 1678
Track 1
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But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.
And earth some new convulsion tear;
My love is of a birth as rare
And yet I quickly might arrive
And always crowds itself betwixt.
As lines, so loves oblique may well
Magnanimous Despair alone
And her tyrannic pow'r depose.
But Fate so enviously debars,
But ours so truly parallel,
As 'tis for object strange and high;
For Fate with jealous eye does see
(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Could show me so divine a thing
Upon Impossibility.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Their union would her ruin be,
Us as the distant poles have plac'd,
And, us to join, the world should all
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,
Where my extended soul is fixt,
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
And opposition of the stars.
Themselves in every angle greet;
It was begotten by Despair
Though infinite, can never meet.
Not by themselves to be embrac'd;
Is the conjunction of the mind,