English Poems Index


Love :






I love you not only for what you are but what I am when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have made of yourself but for what you are making of me.

I love you for that part of me which you bring out.

I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart and passing over all the foolish and frivolous and weak things that you cannot help dimly seeing there and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful and radiant belongings that no one else has looked quite far enough to find.

I love you for ignoring the possibility of the fool and weakling in me and for laying hold on the possibilities of good in me.

I love you for closing your ears to the discords in me and for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.

I love you because you are helping me to make the lumber of life not a tavern but a temple and the words of my everyday not a reproach but a song.

I love you because you have done more than any creed could have done to make me good and more than any fate could have done to make me happy.

You have done all this without a touch, without a word, without a sign.

You have done it just by being yourself.

Perhaps that is what being a friend means after all.
(Roy Croft)