What Then Is Love?

The Nightingale: 

“What then is love? To burn the heart, to sting,
To taste of lovers’ blood in everything.
Love has no sense, it robs of sense the mind.
Love has no end, yet boundless it will bind.
What then is love that would the world ensnare,
In countless curses you would prize as rare,

Mistaking love, a grave mistook for bed!"

Majnun: 

"You sing the truth, but I have surely fled,
From love and truth alike; they are the same,
To one in love. I cannot claim to keep,
My love apart from truth, it strikes too deep,
And hooks my heart and offers no release,
But death that offers dreamless sleep and peace.
So see that love is life and also truth,
That comes as joy, or oftener as ruth.
So here I lie, avoiding every thought,
Of her whose cheek in rosiness has taught,
The sun to shine at dawn and dusk alike,
Whose flashing eyes from lightning learned to strike.

There is no choice of love which chooses us."

Layli: 

Love is no choice, unchosen it is thus.

What love have I to give, O prince of men,
That is not black as pitch and ghastly sin?
Your heart to me is true as mine to you,
And that we love is done. We can't undo,
The ties that have us wrapped in choking vines,
When love that rarest prize to you inclines.
Yet still your love; you cannot be with me,
For I am his, as I must ever be,
Until, perhaps, in paradise you find,
Your Layli there unmarried and more kind."