MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2022, VALENTINE'S DAY

 MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2022, VALENTINE’S DAY

So, how should I celebrate Valentine’s Day - a day of love?

First - in my various English classes, poetry was my least favorite.  I didn’t like reading poetry, I wasn’t very successful in my poetry writing.  I’m amazed that I could find some poems to share.

One of my favorites is from Elizabeth Barret Browning (and one of the few - other than Robert Frost) that I could remember:

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 to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

***

Karen adds: The first line is so true - how do I love thee?  There are just so many ways!!

I also remember my high school English teacher wanting us to learn and love Shakespeare’s love sonnets:

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Shakespeare Sonnet #18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And too often is his gold complexion dimm’d:

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or natures changing course untrimm’d;

By thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Karen adds:  Shall I compare you to a summer day.  As a child, summer days meant playing all day - running, jumping, swinging, active days.  In my mind’s eye, I can “see” that perfect summer day!!!

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Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Karen adds:  Here Shakespeare compares love to other things - and finds his love is so very rare - so unique, so wonderful!!!

Canticle 4 - from the Song of Solomon:

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

Karen adds:  Here the writer (King Solomon is generally considered the writer) also makes analogies - “dove’s eyes”, “teeth are like a flock of sheep”, “how much better is thy love than wine”

*****

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “ ‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.”

I have loved, I have been loved.  And, I still love deeply and often.  

Maybe like the Sinatra song:

““Love is a many splendored thing

It’s the April rose that only grows

In the early Spring

Love is nature’s way of giving

A reason to be living

The golden crown that makes a man a king”

LOVE is nature’s way of giving a reason to be living!!!

***

1 Peter 4:8 “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

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May God always fill your heart with His overflowing, joyous, LOVE!!!  

Karen

Valentines Day 2022