"I Love You Because"

louth | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Friday February 04, 2005 15:46

by Sean Crudden - impero

sean at impero dot iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

042 93 71310

Valentine's Day is No Joke

Perhaps Valentine's day should be elevated to a status at least equal to Christmas and Easter? Surrounded by delicious spring weater (and sore and bickering politicians) perhaps we should turn our thoughts to love. How better to express love than in a sonnet?

Sean Crudden

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-fixëd 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 Shakespeare 1564 - 1616

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 everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
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 chose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 - 1861

Shakespeare’s love is relaxed, distant, unobtrusive and truly brave. It is not necessarily man-woman love. It could just as easily be man-man, woman-woman, parent-child. It could even be ruler-subject love. Shakespeare was in my book a loving man although he spared none of humanity’s foibles in his writing. That is why Shakespeare is the Englishman most congenial to the Irish. There is no need to grieve over Shakespeare - as James Joyce seemed to do in "Ulysses." Shakespeare conquered mountains on behalf of the human race which will never need to be conquered again as long as his texts survive.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous poem is more like the love of the punk generation. It is compelled and driven. Sadness underlies the writing. Words like "lose" "lost" "tears" accumulate towards the end of the sonnet. The sole object of Elizabeth’s affection - Robert Browning - lived in the period 1812 - 1889. I wonder does Elizabeth still love him?

I often wondered too why such a well-balanced human being as Shakespeare lived only for 52 years. It appears to me that love is no elixir. But Shakespeare was blessed with the maturity of a man three times his departing age. And, indeed, there is no need for Shakespeare to live again.

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Comments (6 of 6)

the death of love

by Dayl

Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:33

People seem to get very worked up over what is, in the end, a holiday popularised by Hallmark with the sole purpose of selling greeting cards at a period when previously they had a lull in their sales.

While it is true that it coincided with a religious holiday (that being what they seized on in the first place) the whole concept of choosing one arbitrary day in which to "profess our love" by the mass consumption of greetings cards and over-priced soft toys seems to me another terrible nail in the coffin of acutal spontaneous human emotion fixing it into place as yet another knee jerk reaction to global marketing campaigns and the commoditising of every aspect of human life.

Or is it just that im single?

Spare Birds?

by Sean

Sun Feb 06, 2005 16:38

I do and I don't know any spare birds, flemser. Liam mentioned The Strand (Omeath)?

I'm not sure whats worse

by seaguy

Sat Feb 05, 2005 21:33

the pompous self agrandesing post sean wrote last week which he included comments by people who had attended his seminar. or this piece of turid prose waxing lyrically on a holiday used by corporates to sell us crap we don't need.

No wait I do know whats worse its the windswept shot of our narrator that he feels obliged to share with us in each and every post letting us know his real agenda, self promotion of his vacous ideals

gooter

by flemser - burds

Sat Feb 05, 2005 04:04

storyboss at hotmail dot com

Do you know any spare burds?

Love Earth: I love you Marian because you understand me!

by Liam and Marian Sheppard - Sheppard Security

Sat Feb 05, 2005 02:22

Saint Valentine’s Day
Saint Valentine’s Day, a holiday honouring lovers. It is celebrated February 14 by the custom of sending greeting cards or gifts to express affection. The cards, known as valentines, are often designed with hearts to symbolize love. The holiday probably derives from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalis (February 15). The festival gradually became associated with the feast day (February 14) of two Roman martyrs, both named St. Valentine, who lived in the 3rd century. St. Valentine has traditionally been regarded as the patron saint of lovers.

Sean hope you are keeping well did Christ not say to love. Valentine's Day was the day we got married. Christmas is about love when families come together to remember the birth of Jesus Christ in very humble settings. When you are in love you don't care where you do the business as love is blind and it is only when love runs out and you and the Mrs move to the outside of the bed that you realise that love makes the world go around.

Sean come to think of it life is about love both falling in and out of it. A night below in the Owl Strand is about love too as well as making love after when you get home if the belly dies not get inthe way Sean. Haaah!

Liam

Lurve

by Edwin

Fri Feb 04, 2005 23:40

Ah, 'the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death' ~ Oscar Wilde

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"I Love You Because"

Comments (6 of 6)