Canto XVI, stanza 15 (tr. Fairfax)
Compare:
Gather the Rose of Love, whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, B. II, C. XII, st. 75
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Robert Herrick, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
Cogliam d'Amor la rosa: amiamo or quando Esser si puote riamato amando.
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
De Flagello myrteo. xiii.
“Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace.”
Beim Wort genommen (1955); as translated by Harry Zohn
L'amore sano è quello che abbraccia una donna sola e intera, compreso il suo carattere e la sua intelligenza.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 14; p. 16.
“With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years”
No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)
Context: p>With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee. There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou — Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.</p
“All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won’t let us go.”
"And God Smiles," sermon preached at All Saints Church, Pasadena, California (6 November 2005)
Context: This family has no outsiders. Everyone is an insider. When Jesus said, "I, if I am lifted up, will draw..." Did he say, "I will draw some"? "I will draw some, and tough luck for the others"? He said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all." All! All! All! – Black, white, yellow; rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful. All! All! It is radical. All! Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Bush – all! All! All are to be held in this incredible embrace. Gay, lesbian, so-called "straight;" all! All! All are to be held in the incredible embrace of the love that won’t let us go.
Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti
“Our work is the love of God. Our satisfaction lies in submission to the Divine Embrace”
Quoted in Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912) by Evelyn Underhill, p. 353
Variant: But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest.
Source: East of Eden
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976)
