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From the Expression staff:
In recognition of the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday and for those who may want a little help, we're sharing words of love from our subscribers and, in this post, from some of our favorite authors, (Leave it to English teachers!)
While there's no single "most beautiful" love poem, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?", and W.B. Yeats's "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" are considered the best expressions of enduring love.
Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
~ William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ and no man ever loved.
Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
~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 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 love thee better after death.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
~ W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Leave it to Shakespeare to offer some humor in Sonnet #130, a satirical poem that mocks the exaggerated comparisons in traditional love sonnets by realistically describing his mistress's flaws, only to conclude that his love for her is as rare and valuable as any idealized beauty.
Sonnet 130
~ William Shakespeare
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.
Finally, e e cuumings offers his unique expression.
[love is more thicker than forget]
~e e cummings
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it inmost sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
Happy Valentine's Day!
More News from Boyertown
- "Love" in Action Lovers offer their care and concern in a variety of "love languages"--actions that speak louder than words.
- The Measure: What’s Love Got to Do With It? Phil Repko reflects on his plans and preferences for celebrating Valentine's Day.
