Song In Spite Of Myself

Never love with all your heart,

It only ends in aching;

And bit by bit to the smallest

That organ will be breaking.

Never love with all your mind,

It only ends in fretting;

In musing on sweet joys behind,
too poignant for forgetting.

Never love with all your soul,
for such there is no ending;
though a mind that frets may find control,
and a shattered heart find mending.

Give but a grain of the heart's rich seed,

Confine some undercover,

And when love goes, bid him God-speed,
and find another lover.

Countee Cullen spins the other side of love with this poignant rhyming poem.