Love Knows Best What To Do With Love

Love knows best what to do with love:
As the tree knows best what to do with the fruit,
As the field knows best what to do with the harvest,
As the river knows best what to do with the tides,
As the sun knows best what to do with the light,
As today knows best what to do with tomorrow,
So does love know best what to do with love.
Love knows best what to do with love—
Knows better than the priest, knows better than the laws, what to do with love—
Yes, knows better than parents and counsellors what to do with love:
Doing the worst it can, still knows better than any guardian what to do with love,
Though stumbling and falling often still knows best what to do with love.

And though I go through hell I can go through hell joyfully with love,
And though I fly on wings to celestia without love the sun of heaven will go out,
And though life offers me great rewards if these rewards are not rewards of love I would rather take my chances with death,
And though love gives no end of trouble to a man the lack of love is worse sorrow,
And though I hate love because it coerces me I love love because it frees me,
And though people are afraid to trust themselves to love I never knew love to go into the hands of a receiver,
And though all my neighbors set up signs against the trespass of my love my love does not heed the fences,
And so I do not doubt that the corruption in a man with love is purer than the saintliness in a man without love,
And that any heaven that came to a man without love would not be worth as much as a hell that came to a man with love,
And that you, no matter who you are, should go with love to the ends of love and not be afraid,
And that all laws and all customs should go with love to the ends of love and not be afraid,
And that if you, no matter who you are, deny love, and that if the laws and the customs deny love,
It is like locking yourself in somewhere, like locking the laws and customs in somewhere, and throwing away the key.

I know that the fulfilment of love is terrible with dangers and sacrifices,
And I know that you have to give up almost everything else before you can get love—
As the mother gives up almost everything, almost life itself, to get her child,
As the seed gives up almost everything, almost life itself, to get the flower:
And I know that only those who are rich enough to pay the tolls should attempt the journey,
For I know that the delicate people with white hands are not equal to the undertaking—
To that final adventure which leads over troublesome seas and wild lands before home is reached:
Which leads over earths and stars and suns of heat and cold and storm and calm before home is reached:
Before love lies down with love secured in love's dear arms.

I hear confusing voices of protest:
Voices set up by legislatures to tell me how to go,
Voices set up in parlors to tell me how to go,
Voices set up in trade and by my friends and my dear brothers and all to tell me how to go,
Voices of philosophy and art to tell me how to go:
I hear them all and accept them all and acknowledge their sacred meanings,
But that voice within me uttering admonitions more potent even than the chorus of dissent,
That single voice so modestly advising me, possessing my ardent soul,
That voice appointing the prohibited way and issuing the challenge of rebellion,
Takes me forth into the darkest night on the lightest feet,
And leaves me to myself and leaves me to love.

Good bye, dear brothers and sisters, it is too late to hold me back:
And you, my father and mother, and you, my wife and children—it is too late, too late:
Good bye, dear laws: good bye, dear habits of ordered life—it is too late to hold me back:
Good bye to you, dear creeds—good bye to you, O teachers and priests: I go, I go—my heart takes me away:
You were all very dear to me, the beautiful with the ugly very dear to me, living in routine and in the camp:
I could not say how dear you all were to me and I do not part from you without regret,
But I go: the fresher voice leads me on—the irresistible voice releases me from where I was tied and harried,
And though I call words of farewell to you over my shoulder as long as we are within hearing of each other, and after,
Nothing now can hold me back—nothing now can temper my hastening feet:
Love knows best what to do with love.