L o v e a
nd R o m a n c e!
What is love and what does it mean?
Love is LIFE itself. One
description of the word in my dictionary describes it as: “To
have a great attachment to, and affection for…” Yes, but what does it really mean, because
there are so many different kinds of love – the list is endless for without
love what kind of a world would we live in?
It would be a cold, austere place where people go selfishly through
their lives without thinking of other people and their feelings. Love makes the world go round.
Poets and playwrights over the centuries have written much about
romantic love. Their words live on and
on.
The following sentence was written by A.E Houseman:
“Look not in my eyes, for fear they mirror true the sight I see and
there you find your face too clear and love it and be lost like me.”
Virgil wrote: “How
I saw you: how I fell in love! How an
awful madness swept me away!...Now I know what love is…Love conquers all
things: let us too give into love.”
And who can forget Shakespeare’s hapless character, Romeo as he utters these words as
he stands beneath the balcony and looks up to his love, Juliette:
“It is my love: O! that she knew
she were…With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls, for stony limits
cannot hold love out and what love can do that does love attempt.”
In the play Twelth Night, Shakespeare wrote:
“If music be the food of love,
play on.” And in The Taming of the Shrew, the well-known
saying: “Kiss me Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday.”
The words of the well-known old song:
“O, my luve’s like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June. O my luve’s like the melodie that’s sweetly
played in tune” were written by Scotland’s
Robert Burns whose words have been
loved and remembered for many years.
We all start (so they say) from the love
between Adam and Eve and their forbidden love. Two people meet, fall in love, get married
and have children in the belief that love lasts for ever. But what happens when love goes sour? Shelley
wrote:
“When hearts have once mingled, love first leaves the well-built
nest! The weak one is singled to endure
what it once possessed…”
Along comes unrequited love, and who
doesn’t feel sorrow for poor Tit Willow as he plunges into the billowing waves
(Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado). Young love, lost love, the love between two
elderly people who have lived together for so many years and the universal love
between mother and child and of course the love between any creature and its
young. Here we have the art of shared
devotion, which is love of the purest kind.
Love
comes in many different guises. The enduring
love of people for their animals is very well known, as is the love of travel,
music, books, theatre, nature, and throughout the centuries, people have
confessed their love of culture of all kinds.
A wonderful, but heart-breakingly true story of love, the memory of
which has remained with me for many years, was the story of a man and his dog
living in Edinburgh. When his master
died, the dog refused to leave his grave and was fed daily by sympathetic
passers-by, but despite this, he later died there. There is a plaque in Edinburgh commemorating
his devotion.
Patriotic people all over the world have
spoken words of love and fealty to their homeland with hands held closely to
their hearts. Robert
Burns wrote of his love of Scotland in these well-known words:
“My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here, my heart’s in the
Highlands a-chasing the deer. Chasing
the wild deer and following the roe, my heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I
go.”
In Shakespeare’s play, Richard II, the King said: “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England…This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land…”
The love of politics, religion, power, greed and domination has played
its part throughout history with dire consequences, including the displacement of
millions of people and has contributed to famine in many countries. This is the downside to the word love,
because in cases like these, the true meaning of the word is lost and is
replaced by a mere shadow of its true definition.
I firmly believe and hope that until LOVE replaces the word HATE in all people’s
hearts, there can never be true love throughout the world.
Finally, for all lovers of romance, the following passage is taken from
my book Paper Dreams. Dream on…
“ They flew off together to a distant warm
exotic island, where tiny waves rippled onto a light golden shore and tall palm
trees swayed in a warm, sultry breeze.
They sunbathed and dreamt together on the beach underneath an umbrella
of coconut palm leaves, and gazed deeply into one another’s eyes as brightly
coloured birds called to each other as they flew overhead.
There was a little hut…and the sound of
gentle music was wafting lazily towards them, as the sun gradually slipped
further and further downwards, before finally disappearing gently into the sea…
To all, to each, a fair goodnight,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!
(Sir Walter
Scott – 1771-1832) “
I live in HOPE…and end with the words and music of the old Beatles’ song “Love,
Love, Love…” gently ringing in my ears.
Phyllis
Burton
30th
January 2013
