Life in a Love

by Robert Browning

Escape me?

Never, beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth.

While the one eludes, must the other pursue

My life is a fault, at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!

Though I do my best, I shall scarce succeed.

But what if I fail in my purpose, here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,

And baffled, get up and begin, again.

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.

While look, but once, from your farthest bound,

At me, so deep, in the dusk and dark,

No sooner the old hope goes to ground

Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,

I shape me...

Ever-

Removed