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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Sonnet: ‘Most men know love but as a part of life’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Sonnet: ‘Most men know love but as a part of life’

By Henry Timrod (1828–1867)

MOST men know love but as a part of life:

They hide it in some corner of the breast,

Even from themselves; and only when they rest

In the brief pauses of that daily strife,—

Wherewith the world might else be not so rife,—

They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy

To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy),

And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.

Ah me! why may not love and life be one?

Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,

Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?

How would the marts grow noble! and the street,

Worn like a dungeon floor by weary feet,

Seem then a golden court-way of the Sun!