Valentine's Day Poems and Sayings
Valentine's Day, or as it is more formally known, Saint Valentine's Day, is celebrated on 14th February each year. The Valentines that are commemorated or two Italian saints, Valentin or Valentnus, who share the saint's day of 14th February. The date is now when lovers declare their love by sending each other gifts and romantic cards. There's nothing especially romantic about the lives of the two original Valentines, they were both martyred for their faith, in Ad 197 and AD 269 respectively.
The early tradition of Valentine's Day was that it was the date that birds began to choose their mates, only later did the romance extend to the human population. The first reference in print to Valentine's Day is found in Geoffrey Chaucer's The parlement of foules [The Parliament of Fowls], circa 1381:
For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
[For this was Saint Valentine's day, when every bird of every kind comes to this place to choose his mate.]
How the date of 14th February was selected isn't known. It may relate to the approximate date first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which Chaucer's poem was written to honour. The couple were both 14 at the time of the engagement, which took place on 2nd May 1381, not on 14th February. The betrothal of young lovers sounds promising as a romantic story bit, in fact it wasn't. The marriage was purely a political contract between Anne's brother, King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia and the English government - the partners were unlikely to have met prior to the marriage.
The earliest known romantic valentine verse was written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife in the 15th century:
Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée[I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine]
Since then, there have been innumeral others. Here's a select list to the object of your affections - take your pick:
Valentine's Day Poems
How Do I Love Thee?
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 an ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday'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 Barret BrowningTo Celia
Drink to me, only, with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kisse but in the cup,
And Ile not look for wine.
The thirst, that from the soule doth rise,
Doth aske a drink divine:
But might I of Jove's Nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee, late, a rosie wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon did'st onely breathe,
And sent'st it back to mee:
Since when it growes, and smells, I sweare,
Not of it selfe, but thee.
- Robert Burns: The Poetry (1896)Love Sonnet 18
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 dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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 Shaespeare
One Perfect Rose
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met,
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted pure, with scented dew still wet - -
One perfect rose.I know the language of the floweret.
My fragile leaves, it said, his heart enclose.
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.Why is it no one ever sent yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
- Dorothy ParkerShall we compare our hearts to a garden -
with beautiful blooms, straggling weeds,
swooping birds and sunshine, rain -
and most importantly, seeds.
- Grey LivingstonYou've given me a reason
For smiling once again,
You've filled my life with peaceful dreams
and you've become my closest friend.You've shared your heartfelt secrets
And your trust you've given me,
You showed me how to feel again
To laugh, and love, and see.If life should end tomorrow
And from this world I should part,
I shall be forever young
For you have touched my heartValentines is near
Just wishing you were hereMy debt to you, Belovèd,
Is one I cannot pay
In any coin of any realm
On any reckoning day.
- Jessie B. RittenhouseA bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn't put there to stay -
Love isn't love
'Til you give it away.
- Oscar Hammerstein, Sound of Music, You Are Sixteen (Reprise)Must, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see
What beauty it shall be
That Fortune us assigns.
- Michael DraytonLove is no respecter of age or practicality
Neither morality: unabashed
She enters where she will
Unheeding that her immortal fires
Burn up human hearts...
- Phillip Pulfrey, from Beyond MeA hundred hearts would be too few
To carry all my love for you.They who meet on an April night are forever lost in love,
if there's moonlight all about and there's no moon above.Will you love me in December as you do in May,
Will you love me in the good old fashioned way?
When my hair has all turned gray,
Will you kiss me then and say,
That you love me in December as you do in May?
- James J. WalkerI need the starshine of your heavenly eyes,
After the day's great sun.
- Charles Hanson TowneI love you like crazy, baby
'Cuz I'd go crazy without you.
- Pixie FoudreAh, lady, when I gave my heart to thee,
It passed into thy lifelong regency.
- Gilbert ParkerTell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain,
Unravelled from the tumbling main,
And threading the eye of a yellow star: -
So many times do I love again.
- Thomas Lovell BeddoesStaying far never breaks relation, staying near never builds relation.
Its a link between hearts, which never allows us to forget each other.
Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.
- Elynor GlynCandle light, moon light, star light,
The brightest glow is from love light.
- Grey LivingstonMany are the starrs I see,
but in my eye no starr like thee.
- English sayingI claim there ain't
Another Saint
As great as Valentine.
- Ogden NashMust, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
- Michael DraytonI love thee - I love thee,
'Tis all that I can say
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day.
- Thomas Hood
Valentine's Sayings
Love me and the world is mine.
- David ReedThere is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder.
- Charles MorganThere is no remedy for love but to love more.
- ThoreauThe only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
- Anais NinYou don't marry someone you can live with - you marry the person who you cannot live without.
The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.
- Quoted by Alexandra Penney in SelfAnyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.
- Rose FrankenLife has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
- Saint-ExuperyA kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
- Ingrid BergmanI never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.
- Henry Ward BeecherOh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!
- Thomas HoodTrue love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
- La RochefoucauldBetter to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.
- St. AugustineTo love another person is to see the face of God.
- Les MiserablesLove is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
- Alexander SmithSympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.
- Lawrence DurrellVery small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
-StendhalLove cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
- Dr. Karl MenningerTo love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
-William M. ThackerayIf you love someone, let them go. If they return to you, it was meant to be. If they don't, their love was never yours to begin with...
True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away.
-Alicia BarnhartWho says love never lives? Maybe we've never lived.
Some love lasts a lifetime. True love lasts forever.
If love is great, and there are no greater things, then what I feel for you must be the greatest.
The Eskimos have 52 words for snow because it is so special to them; there ought to be as many for love!
- Margaret AtwoodLove is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.
Within you, I lose myself. Without you, I find myself wanting to be lost again.
Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common sense.
- Helen RowlandNever close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.
- Charles DickensTo get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
- Mark TwainThere is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
- Friedrich NietzsheLife is a flower of which love is the honey.
- Victor HugoLove is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
- Oliver Wendell HolmesLove is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
- VoltaireTrue love is like a fine wine, the older the better.
- Fred JacobLove is a perfume you cannot pour onto others without getting a few drops on yourself.
- EmersonTrue love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
- Francois de la RochefoucauldLove is a driver, bitter and fierce if you fight and resist him,
Easy-going enough once you acknowledge his power.
- OvidIf you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
- Michel de MontaigneWhatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
- Emily BrontëLove doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all of the time, made new.
- Ursula K. LeGuinLove is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
- Lynda BarryLove has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.
- Kahlil GibranLife has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and StarsWhen love is not madness, it is not love.
- Pedro Calderon de la BarcaFor you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
- Rosemonde GerardLove - a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker.
Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
- Michael LeunigThe hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.
- George MooreAbsence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire. - François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
- Jean Anouilh'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.
- Lord ByronAn old man in love is like a flower in winter.
- Portuguese ProverbLove is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.
True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.
- Erich SegalLove is being stupid together.
- Paul ValeryBefore I met my husband, I'd never fallen in love. I'd stepped in it a few times.
- Rita RudnerYou really shouldn't say I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.
Love is when you can be your true self with someone, and you only want to be your true self because of them.
- Terri GuillemetsWe are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
- William ShakespeareI was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the RyeTrip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever.
Like I've always said, love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun.
- Armistead Maupin, Maybe the MoonIf I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.
- Claudia GhandiThe simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.
- Edward ThomasWhen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
- Nora Ephron, When Harry Met SallyAnyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart.
Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.
- Robert BrowningAre we not like two volumes of one book?
- Marceline Desbordes-ValmoreI've fallen in love many times... always with you.
Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely.
- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
Humorous Valentine's Sayings
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
- David BissonetteI don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.
Romance is dead - it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece. - Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons
When you're attracted to someone it just means that your subconscious is attracted to their subconscious, subconsciously, so what we know as fate is two neuroses knowing that they're a perfect match. - Jeff Arch, Nora Ephron, and David S. Ward, Sleepless in Seattle
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.
- Hoosier FarmerLove means nothing in tennis, but it's everything in life.
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
- Jules RenardYou can't put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories.
- Melanie Clark
Love is...
...a friendship caught on fire.
...like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
...an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
...but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
...like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.
...the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
...a driver, bitter and fierce if you fight and resist him; easy-going enough once you acknowledge his power.
...a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
...like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
...like a fine wine, the older the better.
...when you can be your true self with someone, and you only want to be your true self because of them.
...a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
...above all, the gift of oneself.