I love you

Not for what you are

But for what I am

When I am with you.

I love you.

Not only for what

You have made for yourself,

But for what you are making of me

I love you

For that part of me that only you bring out

For putting your hand into my heaped-up heart

And passing over all the foolish, weak things

That you can’t help seeing there.

And for drawing out into the light

All the beautiful treasures

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

By being yourself

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend, a spouse means….

after all!