Ever since I wrote How To Tell If You’re In Love, I’ve been meaning to figure out a follow up post for it. Why? Well, although it does speak for many in terms of what happens when you fall in love, it has couple of shortcomings: 1) Only one person’s experience, and 2) only one gender’s view. So I thought, if I can find more views on the subject and from both genders, I would put them together and put them in a post.
In this case, I’ve chosen some love poems that specifically state what it’s like being in love by trying to define the nature of romantic love. Poetry can be a particularly effective means for explaining what love is because of the way words are used. You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, the poet uses words like a painter uses a brush and colors.
There are defining characteristics to the nature of love:
1) The experience of light.
2) The reality of energy through the knowing of another.
3) The displacement of “self” in priority.
4) The solidity of the so-called ephemeral; having more reality than the “things” we think define our world.
5) The experience of being “more” than we are on our own.
The love poems you’ll read here were chosen for how clearly they reflect those five aspects of love.
The Love Poems
The first two poems are from a woman and a man respectively. From each perspective, the poets describe a light that pours forth from heaven into them and from them, out into the world. For the woman, this light vividly colors everything. For the man, this light takes away “self first” and replaces it with “another first”.
APOLOGY
Be not angry with me that I bear
Your colors everywhere,
All through each crowded street,
And meet
The wonder-light in every eye,
As I go by.Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,
Blinded by rainbow haze,
The stuff of happiness,
No less,
Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds
Of peacock golds.Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way
Flushes beneath its gray.
My steps fall ringed with light,
So bright,
It seems a myriad suns are strown
About the town.Around me is the sound of steepled bells,
And rich perfumed smells
Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud,
And shroud
Me from close contact with the world.
I dwell impearled.You blazon me with jeweled insignia.
A flaming nebula
Rims in my life. And yet
You set
The word upon me, unconfessed
To go unguessed.AMY LOWELL
FROM “THE BOOK OF LOVE”
The Poet leads us - as I think -
To this chief wisdom: that Love is not Love
Except it tear forth Self-love from the breast,
And so absorb the Lover in that frame
Of imaged fairness, where he finds soul’s lamp
So draw, and daze, and tangle him with beams
(Ever so darkly radiating from God),
Beams all for him - albeit dull and dim -
That he shall quite forget what else was dear,
Wealth, comfort, peace, pleasure - nay, life itself -
To live and die in light of those bright eyes,
In reach of those sole arms, in blissful range
Of music echoing from that one sweet mouth.EDWIN ARNOLD
kirilian
This next poem defines the nature of love by showing that when we love, we are not loving the “package”: What we love is the present within the “package”. The soul is the cause of our love, our belief in another and our own transformation. Here the coward becomes courageous and the plain beautiful and radiant. We are all unique and in this poem it’s wonderfully described, telling us, “You may think that person is nothing special, but I can see their heart and soul, so I KNOW and see what you cannot.”
TRUE LOVE
I think true love is never blind,
But rather brings an added light,
An inner vision quick to find
The beauties hid from common sight.No soul can ever clearly see
Another’s highest, noblest part;
Save through the sweet philosophy
And loving wisdom of the heart.Your unanointed eyes shall fall
On him who fills my world with light;
You do not see my friend at all,
You see what hides him from your sight.I see the feet that fain would climb;
You but the steps that turn astray;
I see the soul, the unharmed, sublime;
You, but the garment and the clay.You see a mortal, weak, misled,
Dwarfed ever by the earthly clod;
I see how manhood, perfected,
May reach the stature of a god.Blinded I stood, as now you stand,
Till on mine eyes, with touches sweet,
Love, the deliverer, laid his hand,
And lo ! I worship at his feet !PHOEBE GARY
mountain
I love these next two poems because they speak of the endurance love has and gives us when it’s true. Love gives us the power of mountain ranges so that we can undergo whatever we need to when we have it. The first poem speaks of how love teaches us that the world we can measure with tools, is the far smaller part of how the Universe is built and of human experience. The second poet tell us that through love, we can accomplish anything - even the impossible.
OH, LOVE IS NOT A SUMMER MOOD
Oh, love is not a summer mood,
Nor flying phantom of the brain,
Nor youthful fever of the blood,
Nor dream, nor fate, nor circumstance.
Love is not born of blinded chance,
Nor bred in simple ignorance.Love is the flower of maidenhood;
Love is the fruit of mortal pain;
And she hath winter in her blood.
True love is steadfast as the skies,
And once alight she never flies;
And love is strong, and love is wise.RICHARD WATSON GILDER
Love seeketh not itself to please,
‘Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.WILLIAM BLAKE
How to tell if you’re in love is always difficult because the experience is so complex and profound or deep, that words are not adequate to express what’s happening inside. Put that together with the fact we’re taught words measure and define human experience and you begin to have a problem in understanding what’s going on. This makes the teaching of what it’s like to be in love even more difficult and sometimes simply serves to confuse someone who is going through this experience: “It’s nothing like anything you’ve ever experienced before, but you’ll know it when feel it!”. I’m just hoping that these voices have helped to effectively illustrate other experiences of love and through those, help clarify what can honestly only be experienced.
4 users commented in " How To Tell If You’re In Love 2 "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackDawne,I always love to read your posts when you write about poetry.You have such great taste.There is a deep emotional connection that surpasses non you have ever known when you are in love.A total overwhelming pleasure and desire for your significant other.That feeling is exclusive between the two of you.Euphoria ! I love the poem by William Blake. Enjoyed your article very much.
I love PHOEBE GARY POEM
I think her peom will help me find out
If im really in love or
If i want 2 be in love and im not
Hi Bunny!
That made me feel pretty nice that my taste was good :)! Glad you enjoyed the post!
Hello Bubbl3z!
Your comment was what I was hoping for: To help define what love is. Really happy it might help!
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