Sure, it's a cliché, but poets do write about love an awful lot. And it's a rare poem that makes a convincing case that its author doesn't need all this love business. But in honor of the single people on Valentine's Day, I've tracked down a few poems you won't find in a Hallmark card.
While I didn't include any romantic poems in this column, I did choose two from the Romantic period. One by William Wordsworth, whom the critic William Hazlitt described as writing "as if there were nothing, but himself and the universe. He lives in the busy solitude of his own heart." Wordsworth himself once wrote that "Nature never did betray the heart that loved her," whereas people... people do that sort of thing. The rewards that Wordsworth gleaned from his solitary forays into nature are clear in this excerpt from his famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud":
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
...
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Lord Byron, another poet of the Romantic period, is celebrated more these days for his wit and lifestyle than for his ear, but he had a fine ear. He put it to good use in his gorgeous poem "So We'll Go No More A-Roving." Byron was the Don Juan of his time -- his candle burned at both ends, as Edna St. Vincent Millay put it -- but he was prone to fits of melancholy, and I like to think that he wrote these lines while hung over, just wanting a break from it all:
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
If you're sick of chocolates and helium balloon hearts, you'll appreciate this next one. Robert Frost, in his poem "To Earthward," proclaims that he no longer craves the unabashedly sweet and beautiful. He desires a more earth-bound and well-rounded sensual and emotional experience from life. Here's an excerpt:
Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The Sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
Finally, poets often critique the sputtering out of love in pained relationships, but you could argue that no one has done it as effectively as Robert Lowell did in "To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage," which makes being single seem positively necessary:
...Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh...
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant.
And that's just a taste of it. So if you're going to be single this Valentine's Day, channel your inner Wordsworth and celebrate yourself and the universe. Or at least be thankful that no one will be stalled above you like (oh my) an elephant.
and they create personalized memorable valentine's day poems - check 'em out today: www.poemstogo.tv
They also create poems, speeches and toasts for all occasions throughout the year!
Valentine's Day reminds me so.
My loneliness is all my own.
Of marriage, I can speak of woe.
We were so long, husband and wife,
Living the ups and downs as one,
Through sixty years of married life.
So much sharing of love was done.
But as with all life, death did come,
And tore the two of us apart,
Leaving me a living lonesome,
With just one lonely, broken heart.
Perhaps my heart will heal in time.
But for now, my life's a sad rhyme.
may their softness and warmth accompany you
their luminence lovingly lead you
and all around you the waters of time.
And I never understood why people get so jaded about it. No, people aren't expected to celebrate their relationship on just that one day, and they typically don't. That's as silly as assuming the troops should only be honored on Veteran's Day. Or that our loved ones who are gone can only be remembered on Memorial Day.
Besides, have you seen some of the stuff in stores? Cheesy? Absolutely. But it sure is cute! (I just wish it wasn't all made in China, but that's a different issue that applies to all holidays.)
what does that word say
does it speak to you in volumes
or simply whisper
and go away♥ KLK
the essence in the present
of another, without judgement
without likes or dis-likes
wholeness of being, present
in the chemistry, the balance
of unity together with form
and knowing the smile of respect
given, the dignity, the exceptance
from another, being wanted,
being needed, being valued
is to be cherished of another
another human, another life form
increases survival potential
and the universal cherishing
in the knowing of equals
for the other just is
as I just am
we find our shared values
our equals as we cherish ourselves
our own values another cherishes
our unity of equals
of becoming one.
Rolf KrogsætherC.2012
I will "take my love of all things wandering into the wilderness , and unabashedly drink the nectar of the God's , reveling in all things silent and still , cleaving my soul to tree's of majesty ,losing my way in this world , only to find another , with greater pleasures and golden truth , welling inside my breast , I will tarry under this canopy of sky until my heart is open , to none other than me "
Boycott Valentines' Day!