For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.
Interpretation
This quote explores the complexities of love, suggesting that it can be both beautiful and deeply painful.
In this poignant reflection, Swinburne contemplates the darker aspects of love and life, likening love's intensity to a rose's thorns, which can cause deep pain. He highlights how time transforms our cherished memories into mockery, turning love into loss or mere obligation, and emphasizes the inevitability of sorrow in both marriage and mortality, suggesting that these experiences can leave life feeling barren.
In practice
During a wedding toast, one might reflect on the complexity of love with this quote.
The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty ... a man with no loyalty in him, with no sense of love or reverence or devotion due to something outside and above his poor daily life, with its pains and pleasures, profits and losses, is as evil a case as man can be.
There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate.
Wan February with weeping cheer,_x000D_ _x000D_ Whose cold hand guides the youngling year_x000D_ _x000D_ Down misty roads of mire and rime,_x000D_ _x000D_ Before thy pale and fitful face_x000D_ _x000D_ The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace_x000D_ _x000D_ Through skies the morning scarce may climb._x000D_ _x000D_ Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,_x000D_ _x000D_ But lit with hopes that light the year's.
Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran, Pleasure with pain for leaven, Summer with flowers that fell, Remembrance fallen from heaven, And Madness risen from hell, Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.
I that have love and no more_x000D_ _x000D_ Give you but love of you, sweet;_x000D_ _x000D_ He that hath more, let him give;_x000D_ _x000D_ He that hath wings, let him soar;_x000D_ _x000D_ Mine is the heart at your feet_x000D_ _x000D_ Here, that must love you to live.
For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered isgrief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Lovers have heartaches _x000D_ That can't be cured by drugs _x000D_ Or sleep, _x000D_ Or games, _x000D_ But only by seeing their beloved.
A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself.
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.
Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor_x000D_ _x000D_ Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,_x000D_ _x000D_ Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,_x000D_ _x000D_ Or any one of you, chop off your hand_x000D_ _x000D_ And send it to the King: he for the same_x000D_ _x000D_ Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,_x000D_ _x000D_ And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it.
When I find a woman attractive, I have nothing at all to say. I simply watch her smile. Intellectuals take apart her face in order to explain it bit by bit, but they no longer see the smile.
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