Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives. For love is the creator of our favourite memories and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. And this radiance that never fades, this mysterious and magical joy, is the greatest treasure of all - one known only by those who love.
Anonymous
You are joined together and together you shall be forever more. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love, let it rather be a moving sea between your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone. Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping, for only the hand of life can contain hearts. And stand together yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gilbran
Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good. Love alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable.
Nothing is sweeter than love,
Nothing stronger,
Nothing higher,
Nothing wider,
Nothing more pleasant,
Nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God
Love flies, runs and leaps for joy. It is free and unrestrained. Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength.
Love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. It is strange and effective, while those who lack love faint and fail.
Love is not fickle and sentimental, nor is it intent on vanities. Like a living flame and a burning torch, it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.
From Imitatio Christi, Thomas A Kempis
Valentine Chipmunks jump, and
Greensnakes slither.
Rather burst than
Not be with her.
Bluebirds fight, but
Bears are stronger.
We've got fifty
Years or longer.
Hoptoads hop, but
Hogs are fatter.
Nothing else but
Us can matter.
Donald Hall
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
Dorothy Parker
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-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.
William Shakepeare
Be my Valentine: What does that mean?
Each of us must walk through life alone,
More deeply desolate than we have known,
Yearning for a truth we've never seen.
Valentines are from beyond that dream,
Are like a sunrise on a world of stone.
Little on this journey can we own
Except as miracles might intervene.
No way but through loving might we give
The freedom of our being to another.
In such a sacrifice we hope to live
No longer bound by dreams of flesh and bone,
Even as we bind our lives together.
Nicholas Gordon
Imiss you terribly this day of love,
Miss you with a wound that stabs and aches.
I see the love around me, and it takes
So much strength simply just to move.
Soon, soon, my love, this waiting will be done.
You and I will have what we desire.
On days like this we'll sit beside the fire,
Undoing all the pain of days long gone.
Nicholas Gordon
LWill you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
You are like a tossing sea
And I am like your shores.
You are like an endless wave
And I your waiting sand.
And I will wait forever as
You come and smooth my hand.
I will wait forever, yet
You are a part of me.
I hold you in my arms, while you
Come to me endlessly.
Will you be my Valentine?
I know that I am yours.
I love you with a love that yearns
To be your golden shores.
Nicholas Gordon
PPlenty of love,
Tons of kisses,
Hope some day
To be your Mrs.
Anonymous
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife were happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet
Love is like a tidal wave, it will sweep you off your feet, and set you down again. that’s the beauty of love, forever changing. having that nervous feeling in the beginning, then settling down into a comfortable pace. Being able to share, comfort and sacrifice. giving all you have and then more- that’s love.
Moonlite