IN DEEP PLACES
Reading edition
I love thee, dear, and knowing mine own heart With every beat I give God thanks for this; I love thee only for the self thou art; No wild embrace, no wisdom-shaking kiss, No passionate pleading of a heart laid bare, No urgent cry of love’s extremity— Strong traps to take the spirit unaware— Not one of these I ever had of thee. Neither of passion nor of pity wrought Is this, the love to which at last I yield, But shapen in the stillness of my thought And by a birth of agony revealed. Here is a thing to live while we do live Which honors thee to take and me to give. Amelia Josephine Burr