I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold
And the stars grow old.
This quote is perhaps my favorite “not by Shakespeare” of them all. And by that, I mean I very much wish it was Shakespeare because I love the quote. I texted it to my wife once and left her speechless. Then, being the geek I am, I had to explain that it’s not Shakespeare, lest she think it was.
The quote comes from Bayard Taylor’s Bedouin Song, some 200 years after Shakespeare:
ROM the Desert I come to thee- On a stallion shod with fire;
- And the winds are left behind
- In the speed of my desire.
- Under thy window I stand,
- And the midnight hears my cry:
- I love thee, I love but thee,
- With a love that shall not die
- Till the sun grows cold,
- And the stars are old,
- And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!
UPDATED! After I posted this, Professor Stanley Wells (of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) made the comment that perhaps a particular quote may have been at least in part inspired by Shakespeare. Can you guess which play and which quote?
How about Hamlet?
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move …”
An interesting idea! I knew there was a reason I liked this quote. 🙂
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Stupid quote. The Stars are older than earth. That means you quit loving your wife before she was even born, lol.
You haven’t understood it properly. Poetry goes beyond just words.
This is obviously a comment from a lover of fine arts, heroic deeds, and beautiful words. Or not…
This is a beautiful quote. I had always wondered who originally penned it.
The age of stars is daunting and vast. Their light shines for thousands of years. New stars are constantly being born.
Bedoun love song by bayard Taylor . 1825 –1878
this quote is by BAYARD TAYLOR –1825–1878 , in BEDOUN LOVE SONG ,
Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood in ‘The Dancing Cavalier,’ misquotes this as, “‘Till the stars grow cold” at the end of the musical-within-a-musical in, “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Profound simplicity…..monumental dynamic projected with laconic terseness….the minimal verbiage, the exponential depiction of commitment, constancy and nature of love that makes it impervious to any human act, however calamitous, vulnerable only to acts of God…….