Amor vincit omnia: et nos cedamus Amori

Helen and Eric 
  February 19, 1994
 
				    Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
			    Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy,
			    Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly?
			    Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
			    If the true concord of well-tuned sounds
			    By unions married, do offend thine ear,
			    They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
			    In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
			    Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
			    Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
			    Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
			    Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
 				   Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
			             Sings this to thee, thou single wilt prove none.
 
				       I lived with visions for my company
			    Instead of men and women, years ago,
			    And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know
			    A sweeter music than they played to me.
			    But soon their trailing purple was not free
			    Of this world's dust, their lutes did silent grow,
			    And I myself grew faint and blind below
			    Their vanishing eyes.  Then THOU didst come--to be,
			    Belove`d, what they seemed.  Their shining fronts,
			    Their songs, their splendours (better, yet the same,
			    As river-water hallowed into fonts)
			    Met in thee, and from out thee overcame
				  My soul with satisfaction of all wants-
				  Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.