What would it mean to say I loved you more,

More than sweet sighs of poets past proclaimed—

The essence of true love needs no compare

And by such measure, is in part defamed.

Why should sure bond need terms like ‘stronger than’?

Superlatives like ‘none so sweet as thee’,

Or, ‘Higher than an eagle’s lofty span,

Far broader than an ocean, lee to lee’?

No—peerless love cannot be judged in kind

Nor matched to unions on a former stage,

True love affirmed needs not a cadenced rhyme

Nor musings fired by a gallants’ rage;

It is a promise, here by heaven blessed

That when so true, needs nothing more professed.