-LOVE-

'Logic says everything in this world has a cause and an effect. True Love is the only feeling which is its own cause and its own effect. It is something illogical and yet above all logic. I Love her because I Love her, and I Love her so I Love her'. - Prateek Kumar Singh

- Love is all! -' Like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel' Meaning love is never ending, and it has no beginning, and no end. It is perpetual and continuous and feeds its own fire.

Love is all encompassing, and 'being' in love is the highest love of all. It knows no limits, and it transcends everything. To be in love, is to let go of yourself. To give yourself, in all your entirety, to another being. Being in love is the most euphoric state to be in, this feeling of elation lifts you to a higher level where nothing else matters except the one you love. What makes us feel this way? and what makes us fall in love in love in the first place?, and what is this state called LOVE?

- If There Are Any Heavens -

I carry your heart with me(I carry it in
my heart)I am never without it(anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
By only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear

No fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)I want
No world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
And the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
Higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)

E.E.Cummings

Love represents a range of emotions and experiences related to the senses of affection and sexual attraction. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept love usually refers to a strong, ineffable feeling towards another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.
read the rest of the wikipedia article

Basically love is a strong chemical reaction; it can be triggered by pheromones, ones personal scent. This is a strong element that is inbred and attracts us to another for the purpose of the appropriation of the species. Meaning the person you are strongly attracted to is suitable breeding stock. I believe being in love is a meeting of mind and soul, a bond, a magnet, with the strength to pull one person to another and not relinquish its hold. To be in love is to trust completely another person, to embrace deep intimacy, and an interdependence that works mutually.

To be in love is to share everything, good and bad. To share ones joys and sorrows; today's and tomorrows. Ones bed, ones life, everything! To let go of yourself, and become one; As in the marriage vows. You are tied and bonded by the wedding ring to never ending love, which is its very significance. To be in love is to be in a state of euphoria, a dreamlike state, which makes the world seem a better place, and to give less impact to the harsh reality that can be faced when on ones own. Somehow things don't seem so bad when you are in love. You buffer each other and nothing seems so bad because you have each other. You say "don't worry. At least we have each other, and that's all that matters." It is a halving of all responsibility and therefore a halving of the worries and harsh reality of life.

Being in love takes the stress off difficult situations, makes them seem lesser, than they would be if you were on your own. To be in love is to have the wonderful companionship. You are sharing your life with the person you love. What could be better?! To laugh together, to cry together, to share each others dreams, and goals, to want the best for each other even if it means a sacrifice on one side. To be entirely selfless and give each other freedom to grow.

To be in love is to give up your way of life to let another person in to share it, to give up your independence, to become a couple, a mirror image of each other. To be selfless enough to let them go if it is the right thing for them. Being in love can also mean great heartbreak as the harm will be much greater and with more impact, if you are deeply in love, and betrayal, or infidelity, or deceit rear their ugly head, it can be crushing, and unforgivable, and it could break your heart.

You can still be in the state of love when you are far apart from each other. So! Being in love is indeed very complex a matter. It is wonderful. It is crazy. It is all encompassing. It is an illness. 'She is 'Lovesick',...described as a malady! (An unwholesome or disordered condition) - If it is an illness, then surely there is no known cure...

Being 'In love' is the hardest thing in the world to analyze; One of life's great mysteries. One thing is for sure, it is a great force, and one that keeps the world eternally turning.-

Love is an all consuming passion, deep and mysterious; Stunning and life changing. Mankind has lived and died for love. People kill for love, forsake all others and make huge sacrifices in the name of love. Love makes the world go round it is the very essence central to our existence and yet why should this be so. What is this undeniable force that is so strong and powerful that it drives our every waking moment? Love can make us euphorically happy and love can also break our heart. Where does this huge powerhouse of emotions come from and why does it have such a marked effect upon our lives? I think the answer lies deep within the soul. Our very psyche and the core of our being.-

W.H. AUDEN 1907-73
from Twelve Songs
IX

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
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A wonderfully emotive and heartbreaking poem that conveys the feeling and emotions of love extremely well.

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

~ Cristina ~

She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such,
I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell (there's my weakness)
What her look said!---no vile cant, sure,
About ``need to strew the bleakness
``Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
``That the sea feels''---no strange yearning
``That such souls have, most to lavish
``Where there's chance of least returning.''

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.

Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,
Here an age 'tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?

Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,
Deeper blisses (if you choose it),
But this life's end and this love-bliss
Have been lost here. Doubt you whether
This she felt as, looking at me,
Mine and her souls rushed together?

Such am I: the secret's mine now!
She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life's remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come next life quickly!
This world's use will have been ended.

THE FLOWERS THAT I LEFT IN THE GROUND

The flowers that I left in the ground,
that I did not gather for you,
today I bring them all back,
to let them grow forever,
not in poems or marble,
but where they fell and rotted.

And the ships in their great stalls,
huge and transitory as heroes,
ships I could not captain,
today I bring them back
to let them sail forever,
not in model or ballad,
but where they were wrecked and scuttled.

And the child on whose shoulders I stand,
whose longing I purged
with public, kingly discipline,
today I bring him back
to languish forever,
not in confession or biography,
but where he flourished,
growing sly and hairy.

It is not malice that draws me away,
draws me to renunciation, betrayal:
it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee,
Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon-
I have become the expert of the catalogue.

My body once so familiar with glory,
My body has become a museum:
this part remembered because of someone's mouth,
this because of a hand,
this of wetness, this of heat.

Who owns anything he has not made?
With your beauty I am as uninvolved
as with horses' manes and waterfalls.
This is my last catalogue.
I breathe the breathless
I love you, I love you -
and let you move forever.

Leonard Cohen

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The Poetry of Leonard Cohen is totally underrated and I feel that this is one of the greatest Love poems of all time.

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Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love. - St. Bernard 1090-1153, French Theologian and Reformer

Thank you for reading.
Christianna Garrett-Martin