Love Poems

[DWill]

I think you are exactly right about the spotted nooks of Mass., Tom.

Let's not forget that earliest and most beautiful of love poems, "Westron Wind"

Westron wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.

I can see this sailor sitting becalmed, waiting for that wind to come up to blow him back to his love.

[giselle]

tree-covered brooks in small valleys

thanks Tom, I did realize that nook must mean valley after I thought about the poem a bit more ... i like your word dappled better than spotted but not sure it fits in the poem .. how about speckled .. speckled nooks? .. no, maybe spotted is best. sometimes we search far and wide for meanings, leaving no stone unturned, searching every nook and cranny ... ok, so what is a cranny?

[Thomas Hood]

. . . searching every nook and cranny ... ok, so what is a cranny?

Good question. A 'cranny' is a small narrow opening like the gaps in a rock wall. The importance in searching them for lost items is (I think) that crannies occur in stone houses and could be used as a hiding place for valuable coins and other small items, and probably children would put things in them. So a thorough search of a house required "searching every nook and cranny". At least, that's what I imagine the expression means.

Tom

[giselle]

Thanks Tom, I had been thinking 'crevice' so perhaps cranny is a related word? And next time I see a breakfast nook in the IKEA catalogue I'll be sure to check for spots.


dwill

I can see this sailor sitting becalmed, waiting for that wind to come up to blow him back to his love.

Love and life subject to the capriciousness of the elements: a great theme and so commonly experienced. Sailors are such romanticized people but with an odd dichotomy of images I think - on the one hand, romantic lovers that come and go according to their duty, off to sea, sailing into the sunset and on the other hand incorrigible and rough, heavy drinking, profane and abusive characters.

I wonder what the truth is about sailors (the few that I've known don't fit either image very well)? Or does the truth matter in poetry? Is truth desirable in a poem? Perhaps truth destroys the romantic element and hence destroys the love poem (just a random thought, feel free to shoot it down).

[DWill]

I wonder what the truth is about sailors (the few that I've known don't fit either image very well)? Or does the truth matter in poetry? Is truth desirable in a poem? Perhaps truth destroys the romantic element and hence destroys the love poem (just a random thought, feel free to shoot it down).

Nothing to shoot down; you're just thinking out loud. I'll play the unromantic for now, though, and say that love poems, and often love itself, are based on illusions. But we have our fine illusions and our not-so-fine, so that really isn't to devalue either the experience or the poem.

[Saffron]

I am currently reading Letters to A Young Poet, which is a collection of 10 letters written by Rainer Maria Rilke between 1903 and 1908, to Franz Kappus. In many of the letters Rilke speaks to the inherent difficulties of the human condition. He urges the young poet to embrace, not try to escape or change, the difficult aspects of being alive -- to dive in below the surface, beyond the prescribed and superficial. If I am reading correctly, Rilke is saying that attending to and living all the complexities of a human life is to be fully alive. Rilke applies this to love as well. He writes that too often we go with the easy prescribed picture of love, consequently we end up disillusioned and disappointed.

In an earlier post on the Poetry Forum I commented on the opening line from Christopher Marlowe's, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

COME live with me and be my Love,

My comment was something along the line of: "Isn't that what every girl wants to hear?" It is a very romantic notion, but not nearly enough. In fact the whole poem is really just a lot of romantic nonsense, beautiful, but nonsense. What shepherd has the money to speak promises of gold and amber?! Robert Frost borrows the first line from Marlow for his last line of "A Line-storm Song."

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

To be ones love in the rain captures Rilke's idea beautifully. Life is a storm, a tempest. It is easy to love in the sunshine, but try the rain. One last thought, another poem (really a song lyric) that I believe fits right here is Bob Dylan's "Love minus zero."

Love Minus Zero/No Limit

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

Happy Valentine's Day!

[realiz]

He [Rilke] writes that too often we go with the easy prescribed picture of love, consequently we end up disillusioned and disappointed.

How true. I think love rarely ends up as we expect, but in some ways it can surprise us and we find something much deeper, complex and more meaningful than the beautiful nonsense of the romantic dream.


Confession
by Frantisek Halas

Touched by all that love is
I draw closer toward you
Saddened by all that love is
I run from you

Surprised by all that love is
I remain alert in stillness
Hurt by all that love is
I yearn for tenderness

Defeated by all that love is
at the truthful mouth of the night
Forsaken by all that love is
I will grow toward you.


And one more:

Stormy Love
By Karene Howie

My stormy love for thee
dark drifting clouds of troubled torment
come crashing down
windswept hair lashes my face
water falls from crazy eyes
and blinds me to your beauty
dragged down by a heavy heart
in a sad sea of terrible tears
my conscience shivers
and finally disappears


It is easy to love in the sunshine, but easy love never lasts. Love that can weather storms can find romance again in the sunshine.

[Saffron]

It is easy to love in the sunshine, but easy love never lasts. Love that can weather storms can find romance again in the sunshine.

Realiz: A beautiful and well stated follow up to my post. I really liked the Halas poem and love the description of romantic love/lust/desire as beautiful nonsense!

[giselle]

We are as desperados, us booktalkers, snatching these fine moments of lucidity from the gaping maw of the techno glitch. But no time to dally, I sense the glitch monster is present still.

I think love rarely ends up as we expect, but in some ways it can surprise us and we find something much deeper, complex and more meaningful than the beautiful nonsense of the romantic dream.

Well said and true. Love can be so deep, complex and caring, all the more so once tried on the crucible of peril, agony and despair.

I'd like to add this poem by Rabindranath Tagore. I'm not able to write a preface that would do it justice so I will let it stand on its own.

A Sudden Encounter

A sudden encounter in a train compartment,
just what I thought could never happen.

Before, I used to see her most frequently in red,
the red of pomegranate blossoms.
Now she was in black silk,
the end lifted to her head
and circling her face as fair and comely as the dolonchampa.
She seemed to have gathered, through that blackness,
a deep distance round herself,
the distance that is in a mustard-field’s far edge
or in a sal forest’s dark kohl.
My mind paused, seeing someone I knew
touched with the solemnity of the unknown.

Suddenly she put her newspaper down
and greeted me.
The path for socializing was opened
and I started a conversation –
‘How are you? How’s the family?’ And so forth.
She kept looking out through the window in a gaze
that seemed to be beyond the contamination of near-by days,
gave one or two extremely brief replies,
left some questions unanswered,
let me understand through her hand’s impatient gestures
that it was pointless to raise such matters,
better to keep quiet.

I was on another seat
with her companions.
She beckoned me with her fingers to come and sit next to her.
I thought it was bold of her to do so
and did and she asked.
Softly she spoke,
her voice shielded by the train’s rumble,
‘Please don’t mind.
We’ve no time to waste time.
I’ve got to get off at the next station
and you’ll go further.
Never again shall we meet.
I want to hear from your mouth
the answer to the question that’s been postponed for so long.
Will you speak the truth?’

‘I shall’, said I. And she,
still looking out – at the sky – put this question,
‘Those days of ours that are gone –
have they gone entirely?
Is nothing left?’

For a minute I held my tongue,
then replied,
‘The stars of night are all within the deep
of the light of day.’

I was bothered with my answer. Had I made it up?
She said, ‘Never mind. Now go back to your seat.’
They all got off at the next station;
I continued alone.

Rabindranath Tagore
from I Won’t Let you Go, Selected Poems
Translated by Ketaki Kushari Dyson

[Saffron]

No Platonic Love
by William Cartwright

Tell me no more of minds embracing minds,
And hearts exchang'd for hearts;
That spirits spirits meet, as winds do winds,
And mix their subt'lest parts;
That two unbodied essences may kiss,
And then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.

I was that silly thing that once was wrought
To practise this thin love;
I climb'd from sex to soul, from soul to thought;
But thinking there to move,
Headlong I rolled from thought to soul, and then
From soul I lighted at the sex again.

As some strict down-looked men pretend to fast,
Who yet in closets eat;
So lovers who profess they spririts taste,
Feed yet on grosser meat;
I know they boast they souls to souls convey,
Howe'r they meet, the body is the way.

Come, I will undeceive thee, they that tread
Those vain aerial ways
Are like young heirs and alchemists misled
To waste their wealth and days,
For searching thus to be for ever rich,
They only find a med'cine for the itch.


Well, not exactly a love poem, but where else to put it -- poem of the moment?