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 the light of thy brown eyes / Hath gleams of wonder and of glad surprise, / Like woodland streams that cross a sunlit spot: / Nor for thy beauty, born without a blot, / Most perfect when it shines through 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.
February, 1904.