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A Poem: Through Love's Great Power

Posted by Wayves volunteer 19/03/2014


Through Love’s Great Power

By Vikram Seth

Varanasi, India; photograph by Raghu Rai

Through love’s great power to be made whole

In mind and body, heart and soul—

Through freedom to find joy, or be

By dint of joy itself set free

In love and in companionhood:

This is the true and natural good.

To undo justice, and to seek

To quash the rights that guard the weak—

To sneer at love, and wrench apart

The bonds of body, mind and heart

With specious reason and no rhyme:

This is the true unnatural crime.

Editor's Note: Vikram Seth is an award winning poet and novelist, he identifies publicly as bisexual and was a part of the campaign to overturn India's colonial-era anti-gay laws.

This poem and the accompanying essay may be reproduced free of charge by any person or publication, without permission from The New York Review or either of the authors. Wayves is grateful for the opportunity to share these with our readers.