He Made Me Love Him

Love…
…can sneak up slowly and be a surprise. We’ve known each other a long time. We’ve become close friends. Being together is so comfortable and easy. I don’t want to mess that up, but am falling in love with you. Should I tell you?

From “Jane Eyre” by English poet and novelist Charlotte Bronte
victorian loveI had not intended
to love him;
the reader knows
I had wrought hard
to extirpate from my soul
the germs of love
there detected; and now,
at the first renewed
view of him,
they spontaneously
revived,
great and strong!
He made me
love him
without looking
at me.