"There are two births: the one when light, First strikes the new awakened sense; The other when two souls unite, And we must count our life from thence, When you loved me and I loved you, Then both of us were born anew"
About this Quote
Cartwright takes the most overused metaphor in love poetry - rebirth - and sharpens it into a tidy metaphysical argument. Life, he insists, is not a single biological event but a double-entry ledger. The first birth is sensory: light hits the infant mind and the world arrives with a jolt. The second is relational: "two souls unite", and suddenly the self is no longer the basic unit of meaning. That move is the point. He is not just praising romance; he is demoting everything that came before it to a kind of prehistory.
The craft is in how he stages love as cognition. "Light" and "awakened sense" frame existence as perception, then love becomes the deeper illumination, the moment you understand yourself through another consciousness. The line "we must count our life from thence" has the bracing authority of a moral instruction, not a sigh. It quietly rewrites the calendar: childhood, ambition, reputation, even faith are secondary to the instant of mutual recognition.
As a Caroline-era dramatist working in a culture that prized wit, religious imagery, and the elevated language of union, Cartwright is drawing on the period's fascination with soul-joining without needing to sermonize. The emphasis on reciprocity - "when you loved me and I loved you" - matters. It's not conquest or yearning; it's consent, symmetry, a contract that makes both parties "born anew". The subtext is bold: love is not decoration on a life. It is the life.
The craft is in how he stages love as cognition. "Light" and "awakened sense" frame existence as perception, then love becomes the deeper illumination, the moment you understand yourself through another consciousness. The line "we must count our life from thence" has the bracing authority of a moral instruction, not a sigh. It quietly rewrites the calendar: childhood, ambition, reputation, even faith are secondary to the instant of mutual recognition.
As a Caroline-era dramatist working in a culture that prized wit, religious imagery, and the elevated language of union, Cartwright is drawing on the period's fascination with soul-joining without needing to sermonize. The emphasis on reciprocity - "when you loved me and I loved you" - matters. It's not conquest or yearning; it's consent, symmetry, a contract that makes both parties "born anew". The subtext is bold: love is not decoration on a life. It is the life.
Quote Details
| Topic | Soulmate |
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