An Arabian poem written long before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought in simpler words; and I think that there are some old Japanese songs containing something similar.

All that the statement really means is that the voice, the look, the touch, even the footstep of the woman beloved have come to possess for the lover a significance as great as life and death.

For the moment he knows no other divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her power over him has become infinite and irresistible.
The second example may be furnished from another part of the same composition--the little song of exaltation after the promise to marry has been given.
O let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet Before my life has found What some have found so sweet; Then let come what come may, What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day.
Let the sweet heavens endure, Not close and darken above me Before I am quite, quite sure That there is one to love me; Then let come what come may To a life that has been so sad, I shall have had my day.
The feeling of the lover is that no matter what happens afterwards, the winning of the woman is enough to pay for life, death, pain, or anything else.

One of the most remarkable phenomena of the illusion is the supreme indifference to consequences--at least to any consequences which would not signify moral shame or loss of honour, Of course the poet is supposed to consider the emotion only in generous natures.

But the subject of this splendid indifference has been more wonderfully treated by Victor Hugo than by Tennyson--as we shall see later on, when considering another phase of the emotion.