algernon: i love you madly, passionately, devotedly — hopelessly!
— oscar wilde, the importance of being earnest
my dear, i agree with wilde’s sweet cecily
that hopelessly is rather not the right word
shall i be like othello, loving not wisely but
too well? or like the duke of orsino, so sick
of olivia’s rejections that he desired excess
of melody in order to kill the thing, his love?
high literature and music hold scores of
star-crossed lovers up for public adoration —
but ill-fated tragedy is not my style. on the
day you take my hands for eternity, kissing
my fingers with the glittering, infinite band,
my heart shall at last sing its song for you:
i love you wisely and also well — sanely,
passionately, devotedly, hopefully, my love
growing with each note of harmony swelling
in my heart, the reasons for loving you more
inexplicable and mysterious than the stars
this is not a question of giving back double
what i was given and then separating at trouble
but instead a union so complete as to make
removal or dissolution impossible beyond death
this is how i will love you, not in the words of
the greatest poets and playwrights our world has
known, but in simple, straightforward truths.
