Do You Still Love Me?

“Do you still love me?” asks the young bride,

a teasing, laughing girl inside.

“I love you well,” the young husband said,

kissing her lovely lips of red.

A beautiful girl, his blushing bride.

Her breasts are high, her hips are wide.

A laughing, joyous beauty, she.

How can she doubt my love? thought he.

“Do you still love me?” asked the wife.

“I’ve carried your sons and given them life.”

“I love you well,” the husband replied

holding the tiny baby who died.

A woman now, no longer a maid,

her belly swollen with each new babe.

The child they lost, the tears they cried.

“How can she doubt my love?” he sighed.

“Do you still love me?” the matron cried.

“Once I was pretty, when I was your bride.”

“I love you well,” the husband replied,

“just as I loved you when you were my bride.”

“The touch of gray that lightens your hair,

the lines that have touched you, here and there.

They cannot hide you from me,” said he.

“You are my love as you’ll ever be.”

“Do you still love me?” the old woman sighed.

Holding her hand, the husband replied.

“I love you well, my old beauty, my bride,”

cradling his wife in his arms as she died.

The memories well up as a tear to his eye,

touching her lips with a kiss of goodbye.

“I love you still, my love and my life.

I love you always and ever, my wife.”

The years have gone by, their slow courses drawn

The old man lies dying, afraid and alone.

“Do you still love me?” he hears himself cry

to that one unheard voice, to that dear unseen eye.

“I love you well,” comes the startling reply.

“I love you always and ever, say I.”

No longer afraid, no longer alone

he closes the door to the world he has known.

Loved ones will weep for him, pity the man.

“So old and so fragile,” his mourners began.

“No one beside him, alone at the last.”

How little they know of his love holding fast.

Echoing down through the shadow of dawn,

the words of the lovers still linger on.

“Do you still love me?” the voices do sigh.

“I love you well,” comes the constant reply.

Written by Jill Morgan for her husband Johnny on his birthday, 1978