Cartoonist Mort Gerberg captured true love in his Valentine’s Day cartoon, but most of us can see past our reflection in the mirror. We love other people as much as we love ourselves. Love fuels the dreams and nightmares of literature and so we offer a few poems of love.

My Love,

by Langston Hughes

I love to see the big white moon,

A-shining in the sky;

I love to see the little stars,

When the shadow clouds go by.

I love the raindrops falling

On my roof-top in the night;

I love the soft wind’s sighing,

Before the dawn’s gray light.

I love the deepness of the blue,

In my Lord’s heaven above;

But better than all these things I think

I love my lady love.

 

My Heart, When The First Black-Bird Sings

by Robert Louis Stevenson

My heart, when the first blackbird sings,

My heart drinks in the song:

Cool pleasure fills my bosom through

And spreads each nerve along.

My bosom eddies quietly,

My heart is stirred and cool

As when wind-moved briar sweeps 

A stone into a pool

But unto thee, when thee I meet,

My pulse thickens fast,

As when the maddened lake grows black

And ruffles in the blast. 

 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

 by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart 

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 

Sonnets from the Portuguese: 43 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

by 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 but love thee better after death.