a little paradise Held in the world's vice

I've been in love for long 

With what I cannot tell 

And will contrive a song 

For the intangible 

That has no mould or shape, 

From which there's no escape. 

 

It is not even a name, 

Yet is all constancy; 

Tried or untried, the same, 

It cannot part from me; 

A breath, yet as still 

As the established hill. 

 

It is not any thing, 

And yet all being is; 

Being, being, being, 

Its burden and its bliss. 

How can I ever prove 

What it is I love? 

 

This happy happy love 

Is sieged with crying sorrows, 

Crushed beneath and above 

Between todays and morrows; 

A little paradise 

Held in the world's vice. 

 

And there it is content 

And careless as a child, 

And in imprisonment 

Flourishes sweet and wild; 

In wrong, beyond wrong, 

All the world's day long. 

 

This love a moment known 

For what I do not know 

And in a moment gone 

Is like the happy doe 

That keeps its perfect laws 

Between the tiger's paws 

And vindicates its cause. 

 

[Edwin Muir {1887-1959} 'In Love for Long', from Love Poems, part of Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets]