The best things in life can never be kept;
They must be given away.
A Smile, a Kiss, and Love ~ Robert Browning
love
Today’s Poem: The Sea Hath Its Pearls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Sea Hath Its Pearls
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sea hath its pearls,
The heaven hath its stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart hath its love.
Great are the sea, and the heaven;
Yet greater is my heart,
And fairer than pearls or stars
Flashes and beams my love.
Thou little, youthful maiden,
Come unto my great heart;
My heart, and the sea and the heaven
Are melting away with love!
Today’s Poem: A Song by Harry Breaker Morant
A Song
Harry Breaker Morant
The sun may shine, the rain may fall,
And the world roll round about, –
The king’s men and king’s horses all
Can never rub one thing out.
Skies may darken – clouds will flit –
Troubles may gather and go:
For my sweetheart loves me “just a bit!
And, oh! I love her so.
The vapour vanishes in the sun!
So pass cures, doubts, and pains –
For I’m “loved a bit” by the dearest one,
And the best the world contains.
Today’s Quote: In Search of Self
We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning. ~ Robert Neelly Bellah
Today’s Poem: Love is Essential by Fernando Pessoa
Love is Essential
Fernando Pessoa
Love is essential.
Sex, mere accident.
Can be equal
Or different.
A man’s not an animal:
Is a flesh intelligent,
Although sometimes ill.
Today’s Poem: Touched by an Angel by Maya Angelou
Touched by an Angel
Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Today’s Poem: Dawn Song by George William A. E. Russell
Dawn Song
George William A. E. Russell
WHILE the earth is dark and grey
How I laugh within. I know
In my breast what ardours gay
From the morning overflow.
Though the cheek be white and wet
In my heart no fear may fall:
There my chieftain leads and yet
Ancient battle trumpets call.
Bend on me no hasty frown
If my spirit slight your cares:
Sunlike still my joy looks down
Changing tears to beamy airs.
Think me not of fickle heart
If with joy my bosom swells
Though your ways from mine depart,
In the true are no farewells.
What I love in you I find
Everywhere. A friend I greet
In each flower and tree and wind—
Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet!
What to you are bolts and bars
Are to me the arms that guide
To the freedom of the stars,
Where my golden kinsmen bide.
From my mountain top I view:
Twilight’s purple flower is gone,
And I send my song to you
On the level light of dawn.
Today’s Poem: Happiest by George Sterling
Happiest
George Sterling
Calling you now, not for your flesh I call,
Nor for the mad, long raptures of the night
And passion in its beauty and its might,
When the ecstatic bodies rise and fall.
I cannot feign: God knows I see it all—
The flaming senses, raving with delight,
The leopards, swift and terrible and white,
Within the loins that shudder as they crawl.
All that could I exultingly forego,
Could I but stand, one flash of time, and see
Your heavenly, entrancing face, and know
I stood most blest of all beneath the sun,
Hearing these words from your fond lips to me:
“I love, love you, and love no other one!”
Today’s Poem: Beauty by George Sterling
Beauty
George Sterling
The fairest things seem ever loneliest:
The whitest lily ever blooms alone,
And purest winds from widest seas are flown.
High on her utmost tower of the West
Sits Beauty, baffling an eternal quest;
From out her gates and oriels unknown
The murmurs of her citadels are blown
To blue horizons of the world’s unrest.
We know that we shall seek her till we die,
And find her not at all, the fair and far:
Her pure domain is wider than the sky,
And never night revealed her whitest star;
Beyond the sea and sun her feet have trod;
Her vision is our memory of God.
Today’s Thought: Love is an Act of Free Will
One of the freest acts we make is to love. No one can force us to love another. We can be forced to help another, but we can’t be forced to love him/her. An act of love is an act of a free will. An act of love is more than the speaking of the words, “I love you.” It is the offering of one’s being to another and placing the other in a primary position without seeking anything in return. Similarly, we can’t make anyone love us. We may be loving toward another, that doesn’t mean the love we express will be returned. We may think, “I wish he/she would love me like I love him/her.” It doesn’t work that way. When we love another, it is not a quid pro quo transaction. We love because we love. There is no expectation of return. When we love and it is returned in full, we are fortunate because we’ve found ourselves in a relationship where boundaries are blurred and two hearts became one.
