Explore "Let Love Go, if Go she Will" by Robert Louis Stevenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
LET love go, if go she will.
Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away / The best remains behind her still.
The best remains behind; in vain / Joy she may give and take again, / Joy she may take and leave us pain, / If yet she leave behind / The constant mind / To meet all fortunes nobly, to endure / All things with a good heart, and still be pure, / Still to be foremost in the foremost cause, / And still be worthy of the love that was.
Love coming is omnipotent indeed, / But not Love going. Let her go. The seed / Springs in the favouring Summer air, and grows, / And waxes strong; and when the Summer goes, / Remains, a perfect tree.
Joy she may give and take again, / Joy she may take and leave us pain.
O Love, and what care we? / For one thing thou hast given, O Love, one thing / Is ours that nothing can remove; / And as the King discrowned is still a King, / The unhappy lover still preserves his love.