I introduced my poem, https://medium.com/write-under-the-moon/learning-to-love-by-observing-the-art-of-dying-well-2048b13f71d2, with this Hermann Hesse quote from his first novel, Peter Camenzind:

“That’s the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!! I would gladly exchange every happy day of my life, all my infatuations and great plans, provided I could exchange them for gazing deeply once more into this most sacred experience. It bitterly hurts your eyes and heart, and your pride and self-esteem don’t get off scot-free either, but afterwards you feel so calm and serene, so much wiser and alive.

Little fair-haired Aggie had taken one part of my old self with her into the grave. Now I saw my dear hunch-back, whom I had given all of my love and with whom I had shared my whole life, suffer and die bit by bit. I suffered with him and partook of all of the terror and sanctity of death. I was still an apprentice in the ars amandi and now I had one of my first sad lessons in the ars moriendi [art of dying well]…

...I watched a man die whose entire life had consisted of love and pain. I listened to him make jokes like a child, while death was at work within him. I saw his pained eyes seek out mine, not to beg for pity but to strengthen me and show me that his pain and agonies had not touched the best in him. At those moments his eyes grew wide. You no longer saw his withered face, only the glow in his eyes.”