A Treatise On How To Hunt Love

Love is the elusive beast,
Invisible in his cover.
To have his carcass for the feast,
Careful must be the lover.

He must wait with arrow and net,
And trident and sword and axe.
Not one weapon must he forget,
Lest love judge him lax.

Some say it is best to shoot,
To aim an arrow and loose.
But, too often, love is mute.
He does not bellow like a moose,

Or howl like a wolf at bay.
If the arrow strikes best,
The love might leap away
And the lover need to quest

Endlessly until he finds
The wounded quarry's trail.
Then the light of love him blinds,
And love flees with tail

Bouncing pale behind him.
But the lover need not despair.
Still, the hunter might find him,
And track him to his lair.

And sometimes the wounded love
Forth comes with head
Bowed to the will of God above,
Wounded rather than dead.

There is the way of the net,
Which is cast into the air,
And grabs the prey flirt and fret
Before he knows it's there.

Yet the love struggles so,
And thrashes in the meshes
That the lover might hear, "No,"
And doubt and fear him threshes.

Yet should he hold the trap,
His love declare once more,
Sometimes the strength will sap
From the quarry's core,

And he will lie with eyes
Fixed on the lover's face,
A soft and solemn, sweet surprise
Coming to take the place

Of the fear he felt before.
The lover must reel him in,
Repair any wounds he tore,
And keep his love within.

If the love takes to the sea,
A trident the lover needs
To cast when he dashes free
And pin him as he bleeds.

This is the most direct
Of all the ways to hunt.
It forces lovers to reflect
If they wish to be so blunt.

Sometimes lovers must endure
The prey's hoarse cries of fear.
The love will lunge for sure
For the sea and safety there.

The lover must him keep
From the sea's sheltering depths.
He must never sleep,
Or he will find his quarry crept

Back to hide in the deeps,
And nurse his wounded fin.
The true lover never sleeps,
To Argus he is kin.

And soon or late he may
Coax the fear to flood
From the bleeding prey,
And heal the wound of blood.

To face the prey with sword
Is the way of the field,
To hunt love as a lord,
To challenge him to yield.

And he may laugh and play
With the sword in light,
Make a dazzling display
To put the weak to flight.

The lover must hold firm,
And bear wounds and stern
Measures to confirm
That passions in him burn.

The blood drawn may be his own;
Never is the battle sure.
The lover cannot alone
Think his foe to conquer.

Word as much as blade
Is a weapon in this war.
The lover's foe is made
To wish to fight no more,

But to lay his sword
On the sweet green grass,
And death like a lord
With open arms to embrace.

The lover who axe chooses
Does not have his prey flee.
But still heart at times he loses;
For his prey is a tree,

And, like a tree, tall and strong.
The lover must cut him down,
Ignoring his roots' life-song,
Ignoring his leafy crown.

Only when the tree crashes
On the ground does he dare
To look at what thrashes,
What claws and rips at air.

Then he mourns the lost
Magnificence of the tree.
His heart to earth is tossed;
The fall his own to be.

He goes and embraces
The tree's trunk with tears.
The love that him graces
Is mighty and lasts for years.

However one hunts love,
One must sometimes know
That, by will of God above,
Well it does not always go.

Then the lover must back
Off, and take a breath,
And pin or shoot or hack,
Or tangle or fight to death.

Many ways there are 
To hunt the elusive beast.
The ones given here are char,
Perhaps the least.

But all contain this ember:
Love will have thick cover.
Persistent must thou be (remember!)
And careful, as hunter-lover.