November 9, 2008

The Master Speed

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste,
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still -- 
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
       That life is only life forevermore
       Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
-- Robert Frost

"Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for stern as death is love
relentless as the nether world is devotion.
Its flames are a blazing fire.

Many waters cannot quench love
nor floods drive it away.
Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love,
he would be roundly mocked."
-- Song of Songs 8: 6-7

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