Favored Universe: How shall we live?

(after M. Arnold, with thanks to RBE)

So Love, let us be true
to one another,
not at some remove
from the great and gasping
tides of earth and time,


but here at their shores,
on the wet sand
with foam about our knees
and weeds clinging to our ankles,
swaying in our own ebb and flow.


Let us not flee
the warring madness,
but, as God and Goddess
in the midst of clashing armies,
make love so beautiful
that they are amazed to stillness
and all their hearts fill
with longing and peace.


Then, rather than only
the inescapability of conclusions,
we shall find how we begin
by choosing
again and again.

"Dover Beach," by Matthew Arnold is a classic—lovely and beyond reproach. It is also discouraging. This is for RJ and D; I hope it is not discouraging.