I thought a lot about the poem I wanted to post here for Valentine's Day -- what would best express my current thinking on love and its perils and pleasures. John Donne, Sharon Olds, Stevie Wonder, Barbara Crooker, and many others write purely of how love feels and what it means, or bring up different aspects of the experience worthy of celebration. But in the end, for true love, for individuality, for faith and steadiness and simplicity, I come back to these two. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.
Sonnet 116
by 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:
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering 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, nor no man ever loved.
+++++
They Can't Take That Away from Me
lyrics by Ira Gershwin
The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no, they can't take that away from me
The way your smile just gleams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can't take that away from me
We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still I'll always, always
Keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away from me
Sonnet 116
by 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:
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering 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, nor no man ever loved.
+++++
They Can't Take That Away from Me
lyrics by Ira Gershwin
The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no, they can't take that away from me
The way your smile just gleams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can't take that away from me
We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still I'll always, always
Keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away from me