Sonnet Ccxxxix: Poem by George Henry Boker

Love is our all in all! I solemnly--
After long struggles with my luckless star,
Seeking for joys around me and afar--
Do utter this; for so it seems to me.
Life has no present worth nor worth to be,
No tone to soften the discordant jar
'Twixt self and fate, that wage a truceless war,
Save in the soothing of love's harmony.
Nay, not the love in Aphrodite's kiss,
That stings the senses, and foreruns the fall
Both of the goddess and her silly thrall;
But that sublimer love which finds a bliss
In every giving, to the serpent hiss
Of hate itself, like Christ 's, embracing all.