Love and Life

Paul Belmondo. Engraving in R. Peyrefitte, Les Amours de Lucien de Samosate.

Love and Life

"Life is ! so, Sweet, we both must make

The best of it, and ever take

All that it holds with both our hands,

And keep it ere the shifting sands

Of life run out, and our hopes shake.

Snatch now the joys for which I ache,

Sleep comes so soon. Awake, awake !

For life is love,  not wealth or lands:

Life is so, Sweet.

Without your love my heart would break,

For that great prize my all I stake,

You bind me with love's silken strands

The strength of which none understands.

I only know for your love's sake

Life is so sweet !"

A. Newman (aka Francis Edwin Murray ?)

Lad's Love. An Anthology of Uranian Poetry and Prose, II

Edited by Michael Matthew Kaylor

Kansas City, Valancourt Books, 2010, p. 69.