With what apt ceremony, with how much grace
Of delicate wit and interchange of thought,
Do the marked pair approach the end they sought,
Each praising other's soul or book or face;
Yet in the end inevitably move
Toward a goal different than they have professed.
So love recurrently is only love,
And books and brains are less than lips and breast.
All this, I think, is well, Oh, very well!
It keeps us human though we call us wise.
No one, for being kind, has gone to hell;
And as we look into each other's eyes
We read some stories which we do not tell
That make our earth more homelike than the skies.