And while ye may, go marry...

To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day
To morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his race be run,
And neerer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Spent a beautiful easy afternoon with my good friend Annie. We caught up with each other's travels and encounters, meetings and partings, and went for a walk at the rhododendron gardens. We had just been congratulating ourselves on our joy in solitude--how stable and mellifluous it is, how wonderful to spend a night in our pajamas with a good book and a warm cat and no worry that we are boring anybody; how blissful to have no arguments, no negotiating, no compromises; how kind it is to ourselves not to worry that we're a disappointment to someone who could have done better than the likes of us. I had just said, "I love the ease of not having to strive to please anybody," when we rounded a bend in the path and met this.

And laughed.