Roy Croft Love Quote and Poem “Love“
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Excerpt from Wikipedia: Roy Croft is frequently credited with writing a poem titled “Love” and beginning “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”. This poem, which is commonly used in wedding speeches and readings and is quoted frequently, is nearly identical in meaning to a German-language poem titled Ich liebe Dich (“I Love You”) and composed by Austrian poet Erich Fried; the main difference is that Croft’s version stops at the third-from-last line of Fried’s poem, with the effect that Fried’s poem contains two final lines for which Croft’s version has no equivalent. Croft’s version appears without further attribution in The Family Book of Best Loved Poems, edited by David L. George and published in 1952 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., then of Garden City, New York.
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Love by Roy Croft
I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.