St. Valentine’s Day dawned and I was still very tired from the previous night, not having got home until almost 3am. It was now 7.30am and time to get up!
I rose, showered and had a quick breakfast and was away to work. I made a detour and called in at Iris’ home. I knew she’d have set off for work by then but I posted the poem I had written just a couple of hours ago through the letter-box. She would find it when she returned later.
I couldn’t wait to see her that evening. I wanted so much to be with her, to see her smile, to hold her, to smell the fragrance of her hair. I couldn’t think of anything else all day.
I phoned her at work just to hear her voice and to tell her I loved her. I told her I‘d left her a note in her letter-box. I didn’t tell her what it was; I wanted it to be a surprise.
I had written her a sonnet, that is, a poem of 14 lines and very popular with the romantic and metaphysical poets of the 16th and early 17th Centuries. John Donne and Andrew Marvell, for example, to say nothing of the greatest bard of all, Shakespeare, who wrote no less than 154 of them!
I wrote many poems to Iris but I only ever wrote the one sonnet. It was always so very special to me. Even now, a tear comes to my eye as I reproduce it so many years later.
To my Valentine… A sonnet. Feb ‘73
Iris, my sweet, whom I adore,
I think I love you even more
Than ever I can say. I know
At last for me, your feelings grow.
And as I hold you by me side,
No secrets now your form does hide.
For I’ve caressed these tender places
And thinking of you, my heart races
Upwards into heights sublime
And through the very mists of time
And dances there with sheer delight,
My sweetest love is mine tonight!
Throw the world away; I need no other,
If you, my darling, will become my lover.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment