Adage

By Billy Collins

When it’s late at night and branches

are banging against the windows,

you might think that love is just a matter

.

of leaping out of the frying pan of yourself

into the fire of someone else,

but it’s a little more complicated than that.

.

It’s more like trading the two birds

who might be hiding in that bush

for the one you are not holding in your hand.

.

A wise man once said that love

was like forcing a horse to drink

but then everyone stopping thinking of him as wise.

.

Let us be clear about something.

Love is not as simple as getting up

on the wrong side of the bed wearing the emperor’s clothes.

.

No, it’s more like the way the pen

feels after it has defeated the sword.

It’s a little like the penny saved or the nine dropped

stitches.

.

You look at me through the halo of the last candle

and tell me love is an ill wind

that has no turning, a road that blows no good,

.

but I am here to remind you,

as our shadows tremble on the walls,

that love is the early bird who is better late than never.