Happy Valentine's Day

I hope the gentle reader will indulge me for a little while as I share some of the best verbal expressions of love I've come across. I admit it's a little sappy, but it's Valentine's Day tomorrow after all, and I'm feeling especially loving, and especially loved:

Love Sonnet IX

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

- Pablo Neruda

From Love Unexpressed

They love us, and we know it; this suffices for reason's share.
Why should they pause to give that love expression with gentle care?
Why should they pause? But still our hearts are aching with all the gnawing pain
Of hungry love that longs to hear the music, and longs and longs in vain.

We love them, and they know it; if we falter, with fingers numb,
Among the unused strings of love's expression, the notes are dumb.
We shrink within ourselves in voiceless sorrow, leaving the words unsaid,
And, side by side with those we love the dearest, in silence on we tread.

Thus on we tread, and thus each heart in silence its fate fulfils,
Waiting and hoping for the heavenly music beyond the distant hills.
The only difference of the love in heaven from love on earth below Is:
Here we love and know not how to tell it, and there we all shall know.

- Constance Fenimore Woolson

This Will Not Win Him

Reason says,
I will win him with my eloquence.

Love says,
I will win him with my silence.

Soul says,
How can I ever win him
When all I have is already his?

He does not want, he does not worry,
He does not seek a sublime state of euphoria -
How then can I win him
With sweet wine or gold?

He is not bound by the senses -
How then can I win him
With all the riches of China?

He is an angel,
Though he appears in the form of a man.
Even angels cannot fly in his presence -
How then can I win him
By assuming a heavenly form?

He flies on the wings of God,
His food is pure light -
How then can I win him
With a loaf of baked bread?

He is neither a merchant, nor a tradesman -
How then can I win him
With a plan of great profit?

He is not blind, nor easily fooled -
How then can I win him
By lying in bed as if gravely ill?

I will go mad, pull out my hair,
Grind my face in the dirt -
How will this win him?

He sees everything -
how can I ever fool him?

He is not a seeker of fame,
A prince addicted to the praise of poets -
How then can I win him
With flowing rhymes and poetic verses?

The glory of his unseen form
Fills the whole universe
How then can I win him
With a mere promise of paradise?

I may cover the earth with roses,
I may fill the ocean with tears,
I may shake the heavens with praises -
none of this will win him.

There is only one way to win him,
this Beloved of mine -

Become his.

- M. Jalaluddin Rumi

Untitled

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

- Rumi

A Tear And A Smile

I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
for the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
to flow from my every part turn into laughter.
I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
of life's secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind and
to be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
a smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.

I would rather that I died in yearning and longing than
that I live weary and despairing.

I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the
depths of my spirit,for I have seen those who are
satisfied the most wretched of people.
I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and longing,
and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.

With evening's coming the flower folds her petals
and sleeps, embracingher longing.
At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet
the sun's kiss.

The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment.
A tear and a smile.

The waters of the sea become vapor and rise and come
together and area cloud.

And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys
until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping
to the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to return
to the sea, its home.

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.
A tear and a smile.

And so does the spirit become separated from
the greater spirit to move in the world of matter
and pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
and the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
and return whence it came.

To the ocean of Love and Beauty - to God.

- Kahlil Gibran