Love comes unseen; we only see it go.

“Love comes unseen; we only see it go.” – Henry Austin Dobson

Thus spoke Henry Austin Dobson, the poet of gentleness and fleeting beauty, who understood the quiet rhythms of the human heart. In this tender and melancholic truth, he captures the mystery of love’s arrival and departure — how it often enters our lives in silence, unnoticed in its birth, and how we recognize its presence only when it begins to fade. Like the dawn, love rises without sound; like the sunset, it leaves with color and ache. Dobson’s words are a reminder that love’s beginnings are subtle, but its endings echo like thunder in the soul.

When Dobson says “Love comes unseen,” he speaks of how true affection begins not with spectacle, but with small, sacred moments. A glance, a kindness, a shared silence — these are the invisible threads from which love weaves its tapestry. It does not announce itself with trumpet or flame. It grows quietly in the spaces between words, in the patience of waiting, in the grace of forgiveness. We do not know the exact moment it begins, for love is not born in an instant; it blooms in the unseen. It is only later, looking back, that we realize it had already taken root in our hearts.

Yet, as Dobson reminds us, “we only see it go.” Love’s departure, unlike its coming, is always visible. The absence of warmth is felt more sharply than its presence ever was. When love leaves, we notice the silence where laughter once was, the emptiness where companionship once dwelled. The unseen arrival becomes the seen departure — the invisible miracle transformed into a visible loss. And it is then, in the ache of absence, that we understand how deeply love had lived within us. Thus, Dobson teaches that we often recognize the sacred too late — when its light has already dimmed.

The origin of this insight lies in Dobson’s life as a poet of reflection, living in the 19th century — an era that balanced romantic idealism with the realism of passing time. He observed that life’s truest moments — joy, beauty, love — are transient and delicate. His poetry often mourned the fleeting nature of happiness, yet found dignity in remembrance. To him, love’s mystery was not in its permanence, but in its transformation — how it enters unnoticed and departs unforgettable. Like the