Let me not, ever, to the marriage in Cana <br />Of Galilee admit the slightest sentiment <br />Of doubt about the astonishing and sustaining manna <br />Of chance and choice to throw a shadow's element <br />Of disbelief in truth -- Love is not love <br />Nor is the love of love its truth in consciousness <br />If it can be made hesitant by any crow or dove or <br /> seeming angel or demon from above or from below <br />Or made more than it is knows itself to be by the authority <br /> of any ministry of love. <br /> <br />O no -- it is the choice of chances and the chancing of <br /> all choice -- the wine <br />which was the water may be sickening, unsatisfying or <br /> sour <br />A new barbiturate drawn from the fattest flower <br />That prospers green on Lethe's shore. For every hour <br />Denies or once again affirms the vow and the ultimate <br /> tower <br />Of aspiration which made Ulysses toil so far away from <br /> home <br />And then, for years, strive against every wanton desire, <br /> sea and fire, to return across the. <br /> ever-threatening seas <br />A journey forever far beyond all the vivid eloquence <br /> of every poet and all poetry.<br /><br />Delmore Schwartz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-suggested-by-homer-chaucer-shakespeare-ed/
