Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Love
We cannot live, except thus mutually
We alternate, aware or unaware
The reflex act of life: and when we bear
Our virtue onward most impulsively
Most full of invocation, and to be
Most instantly compellant, certes, there
We live most life, whoever breathes most air
And counts his dying years by sun and sea
But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth
Throw out her full force on another soul
The conscience and the concentration both make
Mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole
And aim consummated, is Love in sooth
As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole