Love by Roy Croft

I found this poem I'd copied into a battered old notebook I've had since my freshman year in high school.  It's still a favorite and perfect for Valentine's Day.  I'm still in love with love.  For all my wonderful friends here in Blog land!!!!  xoxo  ~Marion

LOVE

By Roy Croft

I love you not only for what you are,

But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you, not only for what

You have made of yourself,

But for what you are making of me.

I love you for the part of me that you bring out;

I love you for putting your hand

Into my heaped-up heart and passing over

All the foolish, weak things that you can't help

Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out into the light

All the beautiful belongings 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 without a touch,

Without a word, without a sign.

You have done it

by being yourself.

Perhaps that is what

Being a friend means,

After all.