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A Little Romance, Please
(Playing ~ "Somewhere In Time" .. Rachmaninoff, variations on a theme by Pagininni)

"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet
for him......... And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:
and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the
Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said,
This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

~ Genesis 2: 18, 21-24

How Do I Love Thee?

(from Sonnets from the Portuguese)

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 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 choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer's Day ?

(Sonnet XVIII)

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

~ William Shakespeare

"The thrill of mutual understanding is a delight to the soul ~
And the beginning of love ! "

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

~ Christopher Marlowe

None But the Lonely Heart

I miss you, my darling !
The embers burn low on the hearth.
Still is the air of the household
And hushed is the sound of its mirth.
The rains flash fast on the terrace.
The winds past the lattices moan
The midnight hour chimes out from the steeple,
And I am ~ alone !

I want you, my darling !
I am tired with care and with fret.
I would nestle in silence beside you
And all but your presence forget
In the hush of the happiness given
To those who through trusting have grown
To the fullness of love and contentment,
But I am ~ alone !

I call to you, my darling !
My voice echoes back on my heart.
I stretch my arms to you in longing,
But they fall to my side ~ empty ~ apart !
I whisper the sweet words you taught me,
The words that only we have known;
To the blank of the silent air is bitter
For I am ~ alone !

I miss you, my darling !
Oh !! I miss you !!

~ author unknown

Why Do I Love You?

Why do I love you?
I love you not only for what you are,
but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you, not only for what you have made of yourself,
but for what you are making of me.

I love you for ignoring the possibilities
of the fool in me and for laying firm hold
on the possibilities of the good in me.

Why do I love you?
I love you for closing your eyes to the discords in me,
and for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.

I love you because you are helping me to
make of the lumber of my life,
not a tavern, but a temple,
and of the words of my everyday, not a reproach, but a song.

Why do I love you?
I love you because you have done more than
any creed to make me happy.
You have done it without a word,
without a touch, without a sign.
You have done it by just being yourself.

Perhaps, after all, that is what love means.

~ by Mary Carolyn Davies

If you can access RealPlayer, you may click on the link to hear a
beautiful reading of this poem .... Why Do I Love You?

When we were in college, my roommates and I had a radio in our dorm room,
and at night (after "lights out") we listened to a special program called,
I believe, "Songs In the Night." Soft music played while a man with a soft,
soothing voice read poetry. The poems on this page are examples of
the type of poems we heard on those nights so long ago.

Recently someone found my site while looking for the poem
"None But the Lonely Heart." He contacted me because he believed
the man we used to hear at night was probably Franklyn MacCormack,
a radio personality in Chicago in the 1940s. I believe that is most
likely correct based on the web site I found, plus listening to his
reading of "Why Do I Love You?" as noted above.

I'd love it if you would sign my guest book ... click on my picture.

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