Chocolate, roses, breakfast in bed, a special dinner, a card that actually says something romantic rather than joke about your figure or your age or your memory or various bodily functions. Passions requited and un. . . February 14th. So in honor of the big day let us turn to some favorite poets and remember what they wrote about my favorite four letter word, L-O-V-E.
Never to be taken for granted.
Every day you lay with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
As cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.
Pabula Neruda, “Every Day You Play”
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
William Butler Yeats, “A Drinking Song”
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
William Wordsworth, “The Sparrows’ Nest”
If love were that the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, “A Match”
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnets from the Portuguese”
Unarm, Eros; the long day’s task is done,
And we must sleep.
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear Readers.
