When

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not 'mine' or 'thine;'

With separate 'I' and 'thou' free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of 'thine that is not mine;'

Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

"Please my love, don't throw our love away because you fear tomorrow," she said.

In the end, Patty-Ann got her way. I thought there would be a pause, that I would at least get a reprieve while they planned the wedding, but preparations were already well under way. They'd actually booked a hall some months back in preparation for my proposal. On the second Saturday in August I was married to Patty-Ann and we spent a romantic week in Paris, a city whose natives desert it during the August heat.

Patty-Ann started work as Mrs. Gregory Shelley. Yes, like the poet. Lord Byron once said that all tragedies eventually end in death and comedies in marriage. However, I would never place my confidence in so unreliable a poet as Byron. Marriage may well be the worst of all tragedies.

*****

Ok, not the usual love story but let me know what you think, and before you ask I don't as yet have a second part.