I LOVE YOU

          I LOVE YOU,

          Not only for what you are,

          But for what I am

          when 1 am with you.

                              I LOVE YOU,

Not only for what

you have made of yourself,

But for what

You are making of me.

                                         I LOVE YOU

                                         For the part of me

                                         that you bring out;

                                         I LOVE YOU

                                         For putting your hand

                                         into my heaped-up heart

                                         and passing over

                                         all the foolish, weak things

                                         that you can’t help

                                         dimly seeing there,

                                         And for drawing out

                                         into the light

                                         all the beautiful belongings

                                         that no one else had looked

                                         quite far enough to find.

                                                   I LOVE YOU

                                                    because you

                                                   Are helping me to make

                                                   Of the lumber of my life

                                                   Not a tavern

                                                  But a temple;

                                                   Out of the works

                                                   Of my every day

                                                   Not a reproach

                                                   but a song.

                                                           I LOVE YOU

                                                           Because you have done

                                                           more than any creed

                                                           could have done

                                                           to make me good,

                                                           And more than any fate

                                                           could have done

                                                           to make me happy.

                                                                        You have done it

                                                                         without a touch,

                                                                         without a word,

                                                                         without a sign.

                                                                         You have done it

                                                                         by being yourself.

                                                                         Perhaps that is what

                                                                         being a friend means,

                                                                         After all.

By: ROY CROFT

              HER ANSWER

TODAY, dear heart, but just today,

The sunshine over all,

                  The roses crimsoning the air

Along the garden wall!

Then let the dream and dreamer die

Whate’er shall be, shall be—

Today will still be thine and mine

To all eternity.

And oh, there is no glory, dear,

When all the world is done;

                    There is no splendor lasteth out

The sinking of the sun;

There is no thing that lasts, not one,

When we have turned to clay,

But this: you loved me—all the rest

Fades with the world away.

                          So little while, so little while,

This world shall last for us:

There is no way to keep it, dear,

But just to spend it thus:

                               There is no hand may stop the sand

                                   From flowing fast away,

                              But his who turns the whole glass down

                                   And dreams ‘tis all today!

By: John Bennett

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