If With All Your Heart You Loved Me (Italian Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Alfred Lord Tennyson)

If with all of your heart you loved me,
what ill would I fear while I lived on earth?
If I knew that you were destined from birth,
how different would my life and world be.

A single day with you would be like eternity,
it's as if with me leaving, you have mirth,
and for this I can not the reason unearth,
I struggle from this evil to be free.

You do not want me with you to remain,
where sincere clear love would want me to stay.
Without a thought I would give my life for you
and willing be if we have to start again.
Now I do miss you on each night and day
while I wish that you still loved me true.
(Reference: 'O, were I loved as I desire to be' by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Poet's note: I am quoting his beautiful poem here:


'O, were I loved as I desired to be' by Alfred Lord Tennyson

'O, were I loved as I desire to be!
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
Or range of evil between death and birth,
That I should fear, - if I were loved by thee!
All the inner, all the outer world of pain,
Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine;
As I have heard that somewhere in the main
Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.
'I were joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,
To wait for death - mute - careless of all ills,
Apart upon a mountain, though the surge
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far on as eye could see. ')
© Gert Strydom