A Wild Sostenuto of the Heart
3 Poems for Valentine's Day
Sonnet 1 In the world's history lovers have a place Just as Alexander has or Caesar, Though in the place of battles they embrace, And all their thoughts tactiticians outmanoeuvre. But they survive and build victorious A trophy, when conquest dwindles into dust, And their empire is more illustrious Than Genghis Khan's whose sword now rots in rust. All of the libraries that are or that have been Are filled with tomes of love's brave enterprise, And all of the marvels that are ever seen Are born, live, grow, and die in lovers' eyes. Therefore in loving you I cherish a flame That lives eternally and breathes your name. -William Shakespeare For C. After the clash of elevator gates And the long sinking, she emerges where, A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare, She looks up toward the window where he waits, Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest Of the huge traffic bound forever west. On such grand scale do lovers say good-bye— Even this other pair whose high romance Had only the duration of a dance, And who, now taking leave with stricken eye, See each in each a whole new life forgone. For them, above the darkling clubhouse lawn, Bright Perseids flash and crumble; while for these Who part now on the dock, weighed down by grief And baggage, yet with something like relief, It takes three thousand miles of knitting seas To cancel out their crossing, and unmake The amorous rough and tumble of their wake. We are denied, my love, their fine tristesse And bittersweet regrets, and cannot share The frequent vistas of their large despair, Where love and all are swept to nothingness; Still, there’s a certain scope in that long love Which constant spirits are the keepers of, And which, though taken to be tame and staid, Is a wild sostenuto of the heart, A passion joined to courtesy and art Which has the quality of something made, Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent, Like a rose window or the firmament. -Richard Wilbur Lo! Young we are and yet have stood like planted hearts in the great Sun of Love so long (as two fair trees in woodland or in open dale stand utterly entwined and breathe the airs and suck the very light together) that we have become as one, deep rooted in the soil of Life and tangled in the sweet growth. -J. R. R. Tolkien