The First Time I Loved Forever

I was checking the list of songs that I’ve been listening to back in 2006 and one was this song by Melanie Safka. I remember it was also one of the theme songs for Beauty and the Beast – my favourite fairy tale. The song was derived from a poem by EE Cummings “Somewhere I have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond”. I like it so much, it keeps on ringing on my head.

The First Time I Loved Forever
Poem:
 
“Somewhere I have never traveled
Gladly beyond any experience
Your eyes have their silence
And your most frail gesture of things
Which enclose me
But which I cannot touch
Because they are too near.”
The first time I loved forever
Was when you whispered my name
And I knew at once you loved me
For the me of who I am

The first time I loved forever
I cast all else aside
And I bid my heart to follow
Be there no more need to hide

And if wishes and dreams
Are merely for children
And if love's a tale for fools
I'll live the dream with you

Poem:
“oh, if your words be to close me
I, my life will shut, very beautifully
Suddenly, as when the heart of this flower
Imagines the snow carefully, everywhere
descending”.

For all my life and forever
There's a truth I will always know
When my world divides and shatters
Your love is where I'll go

Poem:
“I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens. Only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses.
Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands.”