"A Very Valentine" by Gertrude Stein

Here is a poem by American writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) for Valentine's Day, which is today.


A VERY VALENTINE

Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.

Gertrude Stein in 1935

(Photograph by Carl Van Vechten)

A Glimpse

From Leaves of Grass (1892)
by Walt Whitman

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

"The Things I Prize" by Henry van Dyke

This inspirational bit of poetry is from Part VII of "God of the Open Air" in Music and Other Poems by Henry van Dyke (copyright 1904 by Charles Scribner's Sons and 1932 by Henry van Dyke).


THE THINGS I PRIZE

These are the things I prize
   And hold of dearest worth:
Light of the sapphire skies,
Peace of the silent hills,
Shelter of the forests, comfort of the grass,
Music of birds, murmur of little rills,
Shadows of cloud that swiftly pass,
   And, after showers,
   The smell of flowers
And of the good brown earth --
And best of all, along the way, friendship and mirth.

Henry van Dyke (1852-1933)

Abraham Lincoln, Born February 12, 1809

On this day in 1809, according to the Associated Press, "Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky." Here are a poem and two quotations about Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Photograph by Alexander Gardner

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BORN FEB. 12, 1809
by Walt Whitman

Publish'd Feb. 12, 1888

To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer -- a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him -- to birth of Him.


Two presidential quotations about Abraham Lincoln:

Mr. Lincoln has come and gone. . . . He has been raising a respectable pair of dark-brown whiskers, which decidedly improve his looks, but no appendage can ever render him remarkable for beauty.
     JAMES A. GARFIELD
     in a letter to Mrs. Garfield
     February 16, 1861

Lincoln was a very normal man with very normal gifts, but all upon a great scale, all knit together in loose and natural form, like the great frame in which he moved and dwelt.
     WOODROW WILSON
     in a speech in Chicago, Illinois
     February 2,1909

From Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare

Here are two erotic stanzas from Venus and Adonis, a narrative poem by William Shakespeare. In each of the stanzas below, Venus is speaking to Adonis.

"Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?
Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,
Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.
   Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
   And died to kiss his shadow in the brook."

"Fondling," she saith, "since I have hemm'd thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
   Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
   Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare on Love and Lust

A stanza from Venus and Adonis (1592)
a narrative poem by William Shakespeare

(Adonis is speaking to Venus.)

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
   Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
   Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies."

To read about Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis click here.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)