LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY

 

LOVE’S  PHILOSOPHY

‘‘Love” is a natural relationship between two lovers who would feel disappointed if they are not meeting together.  A fulfilled love affair is the outcome of frequent, if not of constant, togetherness.

In the lyric poem Love’s Philosophy which is given below, the English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe  Shelley(1792-1822) says “love is governed by a sacred law of nature” according to which different objects touch and embrace each other. 

The poem has two stanzas of eight lines each. The full text reads as follows:

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the oceans,

The winds of heaven mix forever,

With a sweeter emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one another’s being mingle:--

Why not I with thine?

 

See ! the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:-

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me?

 

            It is apparent from the concluding lines, that like many other romantic poets, Shelley, too, was a victim of unrequited love.

 

            Most of his poetry shows that only love can fill up the social vacuum created by the disappearance of other cohesive forces.

 

It was also his firm conviction that ‘love is a transcendental force kindling all things into beauty.’ 

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G.R.Kanwal

16 April 2025