Quia Multum Amavi
Quia Multum Amavi - meaning Summary
Love as Sacrament and Sorrow
This lyric voice likens first love to a religious revelation, comparing the shock of seeing the beloved to a priest beholding the Eucharist. The speaker recounts worship and unreciprocated intensity, acknowledging that misplaced desire and imbalance have left him hurt and remorseful. Despite acknowledging sorrow and humiliation, he concludes with gratitude: loving was worthwhile because its brightness—likened to many suns making a blue flower—justifies the pain.
Read Complete AnalysesDear Heart I think the young impassioned priest When first he takes from out the hidden shrine His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine, Feels not such awful wonder as I felt When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee, And all night long before thy feet I knelt Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry. Ah! had'st thou liked me less and loved me more, Through all those summer days of joy and rain, I had not now been sorrow's heritor, Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain. Yet, though remorse, youth's white-faced seneschal Tread on my heels with all his retinue, I am most glad I loved thee--think of all The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!
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