The Definition of Love

    My Love is of a birth as rare

    As 'tis for object strange and high：

    It was begotten by Despair

    Upon Impossibility.

    Magnanimous Despair alone

    Could show me so divine a thing，

    Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown

    But vainly flapped its Tinsel wing.

    And yet I quickly might arrive

    Where my extended soul is fixt，

    But Fate does iron wedges drive，

    And always crowds itself betwixt.

    For Fate with jealous eye does see

    Two perfect Loves； nor lets them close：

    Their union would her ruin be，

    And her tyrannic power depose.

    And therefore her decrees of steel

    Us as the distant Poles have placed，

    （Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel）

    Not by themselves to be embraced.

    Unless the giddy Heaven fall，

    And Earth some new convulsion tear；

    And， us to join， the World should all

    Be cramped into a planisphere.

    As lines so Loves oblique may well

    Themselves in every angle greet：

    But ours so truly parallel，

    Though infinite can never meet.

    Therefore the Love which us doth bind，

    But Fate so enviously debars，

    Is the conjunction of the Mind，

    And opposition of the Stars.