Notes on Valentine's Day: "Love Lasts, Lust Cloys"

Canada and the Philippines are among the nine countries, at least, where the 14th of February is celebrated as Valentine's Day, which is basically a day for lovers and romance, a day for friendship and kinship, and a day of remembrance and affection.

On this day, we recall a favourite poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43, popularly known as 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 and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day’s 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

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.

But there's more. Like this quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet -

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

In his book The Seven Deadly Sins, Simon Blackburn differentiates between love and lust. "Love pursues the good of the other, with self-control, concern, reason, and patience," he writes. Whereas "lust pursues its own gratification, headlong, impatient of any control, immune to reason".

He continues: 

"Love thrives on candlelight and conversations. Lust is equally happy in a doorway or a taxi, and its conversation is made of animal grunts and cries.

"Love is individual: there is only the unique Other, the one doted upon, the single star around whom the lover revolves. Lust takes what comes.

"Love grows with knowledge and time, courtship, trust, and truth. Lust is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the collision of two football packs.

"Love lasts, lust cloys".

Those love lines in Blackburn's book find significance in what artist Michelle Chermaine Ramos wrote some time ago, thus:

"Long after youth’s fires of passion have faded, there needs to be mutual trust, respect, appreciation, affection and understanding on the emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels for love to last through life’s ups and downs".

Today is a good day to revisit her Love Takes Flight and rediscover the fire and passion of romantic love whose essence she tries to capture in her own painting.

Full story at: Valentine's Day Feature: Love Takes Flight

Valentine's Day Feature: Love Takes Flight Volume 4, Issue No. 46 OPINION/COMMENTARY / News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobod y / . . . . . A communi...

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Romy Márquez 

Editor