Love is not all:
it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof
against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar
to men that sink
And rise and sink
and rise and sink again;
Love cannot fill the thickened lung
with breath,
Nor clean the blood,
nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends
with death
Even as I speak,
for lack of love alone.
It well may be that
in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain
and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past
resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love
for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night
for food.
It well may be.
I do not think I would.