Is Romantic Love Enough?

After the Royal Wedding yesterday, it seems that the most common phrase on everyone’s lips is “how romantic”.

And yes, the wedding was beautiful and Kate Catherine and William did look very much in love, but I sure hope they have much more than romantic love.

Perhaps we need to consider exactly what true love is and be sure that we are seeking and choosing the right love and not chasing only the romance.

In the wake of all the romantic feelings aroused by the royal wedding, I share with you one of my favorite poems and hope that it will remind us what true love is all about.


Not Love, Perhaps by A.S.J. Tessimond

This is not Love, perhaps,
Love that lays down its life,
that many waters cannot quench,
nor the floods drown,
But something written in lighter ink,
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.

A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand,
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street.

A need for inns on roads, islands in seas,
Halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked, notes compared;
A need, at times, of each for each,
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.