Love slays what we have been, That we may be what we were not. from “The Dragon and the Unicorn - Kenneth Rexroth

Love slays what we have been,
That we may be what we were not.

The modern sensibility attempts to drain the contents of experience; these Greek poets strive to state the fact so poignantly that it becomes an ever-flowing spring — as Sappho says, "More real than real, more gold than gold."

Marriage is the last sacrament available to modern man, and with the terrible destruction of interpersonal relations by capitalism and its war-making State, it is not very available, nor is it surely enduring. But then, vision does not come with guarantees.

Love slays what we have been,
That we may be what we were not.