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