de Flagello Myrteo; CCCLX Thoughts and Fancies on Love (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: XVIII. Then only is Love blind when he beholds not the Ideal. The Ideal authenticates the lover, as the halo the saint. How many who have a clear sight of Love Ideal have never been permitted a glimpse of Love Incarnate! Yet, if thou hast Love Incarnate thou hast Love Ideal also; for thine own Ideal he needs must be, however below the true Ideal of Love. Ideal Love in this life is like the rainbow, which dwells nowhere but in heaven, yet is beheld nowhere but upon earth. XXII. Thou mayest without immodesty be enamoured of thine own soul when thou findest her features in the soul of thy Love. XXIII. Love alone can tell the thoughts of Love, and to do this he must look within. XXIV. Love's face to Love no earthly date betrays: There are the oldest and the youngest days. Love's foot is on, not of, terrestrial clay, Nor is his face celestial flame and air: Heaven, adding much, finds nought to take away, Except the veil Love needs no more to wear. Give thy Love pebble for her diamond, If better may not be, but never glass. XXVII. Pygmalion's bride was marble before she was flesh, and clay before she was marble: but she was never plaster at any time. XXVIII. In the religion of Love the courtesan is a heretic; but the nun is an atheist. XXIX. Make no vestal vow, unless Love himself will be surety for thee. Then is Love blest, when from the cup of the body he drinks the wine of the soul. XXXI. No intimacy of caress is refused to lovers, provided that the caress be there for the sake of the love, and not the love for the sake of the caress. XXXII. Vain the caress, though by a goddess given, That soul as body raises not to heaven. XXXIII. Earthly passion is as the song of the nightingale, which charms chiefly ...