Love's Chord

Edward Dowden

Stand off from me; be still your own;
Love's perfect chord maintains the sense
Through harmony, not unison,
Of finest difference.

See not as I see; set your thought
Against my thought; call up your will
To grapple mine; gay bouts we fought,
Let us be wrestlers still.

Then, if we cannot choose but mate
And mingle wholly, it will be
The doom of law, a starry fate,
And glad necessity.