Pity Me Not by Edna St. Vincent Millay (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

The word love, when used romantically, refers to two different things. It is the feeling of desire that one person has for another - but it also means the mutual relationship between two people who love one another. The difference is that one person can feel love as a desire but it takes two to make a loving partnership.. Once the relationship is established, the desire passes away - and most people consider this to be a good thing. It is more comfortable and rewarding to be in a loving relationship than it is to be in a state of constant yearning.

There are some, however, who are addicted to romance. They only experience love as a desire - they can't move on to the next stage and form a loving partnership. Once the romance is over they cool off and look for a new partner. Such romance-addicts are often very good at the romantic stage - they've had a lot of practice - but it leads nowhere. Perhaps it's a game to them, maybe a kind of self-love,an affirmation of their own desirability.

John Keats had a morbid fear of this fickleness - it's apparent in his love letters - and in poems such as "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

There's biographical information and some information on the background of this sonnet here
http://www.dobhran.com/EdnaSt.htm

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.

This love I have known always: love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.

Видео Pity Me Not by Edna St. Vincent Millay (read by Tom O'Bedlam) канала SpokenVerse