“Who Ever Loved That Loved Not at First Sight?” ⁂ classics

I love this piece by Marlowe, although it is not a stand alone piece, as all the others in this Classics series thus far have been; it’s an excerpt from one of his plays, Hero and Leander. What I love about this piece is the youthful hope, that for most of us has been destroyed, where he truly seems to believe that we are fated to find that One person in our life and we will know them because we will fall in love at first sight.

I felt that love once, and only once. It has never gone away or faded.

Have you ever felt that kind of love? Did it last?

. . .

Who Ever Loved That Loved Not at First Sight?
By Christopher Marlowe

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Originally published 15 December 2017.