For Mortal Stakes

Ever make life decisions based on a poem?

Yeah, me either. However, they can sometimes provide food for thought. Consider this piece from a Robert Frost poem....


“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.”

I happened to find a portion of this in a novel that I was reading recently, and it sort of resonated for me. Enough for me, at least, to bend to the task of finding the rest of the poem. They are easy to find, in these time of mass communication.

Although Frost was writing about yielding an axe to a couple of tramps, who wanted to take over his woodchopping for money, the real message was, of course, different. One often can get more than one bit of wisdom from the written word.

Love really is like this; it's work, disguised as play, for mortal stakes. One seeks it out, embraces it, enjoys it, and works hard to keep it. This is something for me to keep in mind, if I want to have any kind of a future with a partner that I love very much. Keeping it in mind will remind me that anything worth having and enjoying, is worth working hard for.