"Give me a place to stand," Archimedes said, "and I can move the world." Paradoxical, clever, his remark which first explained the use of the lever was an academic joke. But if that dead sage could return to life, he would find a clear demonstration of his idea, which is not pure theory after all. That putative spot exists in the love I feel for you, my dear. What could be more immovable or stronger? What becomes more and more secure, the longer it is battered by inconstancy and the stress we find in our lives? Here is that fine fixed point from which to move a world that is out of joint, as he could have done, had he known a love like this.
From Sonnets of Love and Death by Jean de Sponde, translated by David R. Slavitt. Copyright © 2001 by Northwestern University Press. Used with permission. All rights reserved.