Explore "Love's Reason (Sonnets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For that thy face is fair I love thee not; / Nor yet because thy brown benignant eyes / Have sudden gleams of gladness and surprise, / Like woodland brooks that cross a sunlit spot: / Nor for thy body, born without a blot, / And loveliest when it shines with no disguise / Pure as the star of Eve in Paradise, -- / For all these outward things I love thee not:
But for a something in thy form and face, / Thy looks and ways, of primal harmony; / A certain soothing charm, a vital grace / That breathes of the eternal womanly, / And makes me feel the warmth of Nature's breast, / When in her arms, and thine, I sink to rest.