Counterfeit of love

War is sweet when brothers stick together,
and bitter, when every man is for himself.

Faith is fake when men manipulate the scripture,
but when they let it form them, firmly fruitful.

This is the proof of scriptures.
What book, when men obey it, brings grace and peace,
but hate and war when they surrender to it all?
Yet either, only worshiped, slips men’s souls.

Beauty, and the body, incite to love
that enters by the eyes and departs the same,
that is no love, but feeling and self pleasing.

Love, and the soul, incite to beauty,
that enters by the heart and does not gray,
that keeps its youth and knows no age.

Lost to pleasure only, enslaved by need,
devouring flesh, burnt up in the fire of passion,
the memory infected yields life for death.

Counterfeit of love, it blinds its victims,
making dark seem bright,
but love, it dies as it is seeded,
and rises to be harvested as light.

— Romanós