Valentine’s Day has become a source of stress and confusion for boyfriends and husbands nationwide. The decision of how to express your love and devotion for your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day has led to widespread panic for many shoppers. As is now the case with every other holiday, there are too many choices and opinions about what makes the perfect Valentine’s gift.
Chocolates and flowers are certainly top contenders for a sure-fire Valentine’s Day gift. But there are those who don’t like chocolate. (Yes, really. Not in The Write Room, to be sure, but elsewhere.) And many people are allergic to flowers.
Lingerie? Perhaps. Unless she’s already hit the age where she’d rather sleep in sweatpants. Jewelry? Well, okay – if you have the budget, diamonds – or anything in a little blue box – will definitely work.
Valentine’s Day was not always like this. In Victorian times, it was sufficient to present your love with a handmade card or handwritten note. Sometimes the greeting included a poem, and if you wanted to send a racy verse, you would send it anonymously.
The point of giving or sending a Valentine was to express love and devotion, and to inspire romance. And in today’s digital world, a handwritten expression of love is certainly going to be more personal and tangible than a text or a Tweet.
Need some inspiration to pen a poem or love letter of your own? Here are several literary classics to consider. You may even want to recopy one in your own handwriting to add to your sweetheart’s box of chocolates.
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
Read the entire poem here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173100
Lord Byron was the inspiration for the main character in The Vampyre, the novella by John Polidori, considered the first romantic vampire character.
Annabel Lee
By Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
The rest of the poem is here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174151
Strange as it may seem, the flawed and tragic Edgar Allan Poe had a sentimental side.
And, one of our favorites, regardless of the occasion:
The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes
PART ONE
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
All 17 stanzas are here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171940
Read it all. The things we do for love indeed.
The Poetry Foundation website has every poem you studied in any high school or college lit class, plus biographies of the poets.
A View From the Room 