Ah! sweetheart, seek not to explain
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Why grass is green and skies are blue,
Nor mar, with small enquiring brain,
What wiser heads than I and you
Pondered, yet fathomed not—'tis best
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To marvel, and to leave the rest.
To worship, not to comprehend,
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You are as lovely as you are;
And so it is, enchanted friend,
With water-lily and with star;
And—Love, what means it? Ask as soon
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The meaning of the rising moon.
O is it not enough to draw
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This breath of being, you and I,
Girt round with loveliness and awe?
Why should we ask the reason why?
The gods gave us this summer day
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To love in—not explain away.
O lips as red as yonder rose,
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I kiss and question not—content;
Nor spoil such poesy with prose
Of what the high immortals meant—
To pack with such mysterious bliss
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The simple action of a kiss.
Nor why this fury of delight,
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Blent so with pathos and with pain.
Ah! love, too soon draws on the night,
Kiss—lest we never kiss again!
I cannot tell the reason why,
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But I shall love you till I die.