THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2024 - VALENTINE'S DAY - II

 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2024 - VALENTINE’S DAY PART II

How about some poetry about love today? (Note  - most are excerpts - not the entire poem)

“How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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 freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion put to use

Karen adds:  I have been overpowered by love many times in life - from those special moments, through forty-seven years of marriage, holding (and blubbering happy tears holding my precious twins for the first time), and even to the ecstasy of knowing God’s love surrounding me.  

*****

“First Love” by John Clare

I ne’er was struck before that hour

With love so sudden and so sweet,

Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower

And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale,

My legs refused to walk away,

And when she looked, what could I ail?

My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face

And took my eyesight quite away,

The trees and bushes round the place

Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing,

Words from my eyes did start—

They spoke as chords do from the string,

And blood burnt round my heart.

Karen adds:  I do remember my first love - yes (as Clare writes) it “stole my heart away complete”.  

*****

“Juke Box Love Song” by Langston Hughes

I could take the Harlem night

and wrap around you,

Take the neon lights and make a crown,

Take the Lenox Avenue busses,

Taxis, subways,

And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem's heartbeat,

Make a drumbeat,

Put it on a record, let it whirl,

And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day--

Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

Karen adds: Hughes - a black American poet, describes love in Harlem - as in a juke box song.

*****

“She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Karen adds:  “A mind at peace” - love can wipe all the hate away, and “smiles that win.” All else disappears as we find that perfect love.  

*****

“Evening Song” by Sidney Lanier

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,

And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea;

How long they kiss in sight of all the lands,

Ah! longer, longer we.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart,

Glimmer, ye waves, 'round else unlighted sands;

Oh night! divorce our sun and sky apart-

Never our lips, our hands.

Karen adds: Lanier writes of the forever love - “ah longer, longer we” 

Humans are so imperfect - we “fall in love”, and boom, “we fall OUT of love”.  What is “forever love” to you?

*****

And finally, Shakespeare:

“Sonnet 18” by Williams Shakespeare

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.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Karen adds: “Thy eternal summer shall not fade” - but for eternity - “as long as men can breathe.”

*****

So, on this day after Valentine’s Day - I use these poems of love.  To me, who believes that “LOVE WINS” and that “LOVE TRANSFORMS,” I picture a perfect, eternal LOVE - a Love that passes understanding, a love so pure that it can only exist in a perfect, infinite, all-loving God!!!

Karen Anne White, ©, Valentine’s Day -  II -  2024