Love by Khalil Gibran. When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep, and when he swings and folds you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when He speaks to you, believe in Him, though His voice may shatter your dreams, as the north wind lays with the garden. For even as love crowns you,
so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for you, so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches, that queer in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like the sheaves of corn, he gathers you unto himself. He dresses you to make you naked. He shifts you to free you from your husk. He grinds you to whiteness. He needs you until you are blind.
And then He assigns you to His sacred fire, that you may grow sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall do unto you, that you may know the secrets of your heart. and that knowledge become a fragment of life's heart. But if in your fear you should seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor into the seasonless world where you shall laugh but not all.
Of your laughter and weep but not all of your tears. Love skips not but itself and takes not from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love. When you love, you should not say, God is in my heart, but rather, I am in the heart of God. And think not you can direct the course of love for love. If it finds you worthy, the next year occurs.