Who Loves What

Love. That single word, followed by a period is a complete sentence in and of itself. It is the predicate and an understood (you), as a given command. It is the definition of a universal emotion. It is something we recognize from the time we are wee babes in diapers and booties, and it lives on through our smiles and our tears until we lay down consumed by the earth. It is strictly forbidden and also a passion unbridled. It is the greatest heartache and the greatest ecstasy. It is the thing we claim to need the most and hurts the worst when we do not have it. Michael Bolton says it is ‘A Wonderful Thing,” and The Beatles claim it is “All You Need”. It is power and glory in only four letters and a dot. It is love.
When instructed to come up with an anthology of poems, I immediately decided to focus on the theme of love. Because it is so powerful and so broad, I figured I could not go wrong. To narrow it down though and give the collection a concentrated effort, I choose to compile a set from all different times of life. We learn about love at such a young age, and it plays such a huge role in our lives throughout time. I want to try to bring the aspect to the table of the question of what love means to us at each stage of life. I have chosen nursery rhymes to signify our innocence and novel idea of love as babies. I chose sonnets and a few other poems to show relevance of how our love grows exponentially into our youth. I have also added a few songs into the mix because essentially, songs are poems, just sung instead of read. I feel like many lyrical artists have a great understanding of what love is and what it means to us through our lives.
When we are young pups merely out of the womb, we are “goo-goo” and “ga-ga” about nothing other than our parents. They hold us when we cry, feed us when we are hungry, rock us to sleep at night and take our fevers away. These magnificent beings at the center of our universe are supposed to show us unconditional and unimaginable love. At this point, we have learned nothing other than hugging and kissing and squeezing when we feel scared. All of this we do only with our parents for the first good time we are on this planet. That is really all we know. We know that love means we get fed, diapers get changed, and we get toys and a warm blanket at night. I have included a Mother Goose nursery rhyme entitled “My Love” as the sequential piece involved in our very young childhood. In this rhyme, the focus of the attention is on the “love”, in which essentially the mother is returning home from the market with food for baby.
James Hunt expresses another side of youthful lust in love in his poem, “Jenny Kissed Me.” He is in the essence of the feelings he has for Jenny. He seems to care about nothing else except that Jenny kissed him. He rants on about his growing up and growing old, but wants it to also not be forgotten that “Jenny Kissed Me.” This is a true sign of our young friend, “puppy love.” When we are teenagers, at the brink of our real life experiences, we do not care about getting into trouble at school. We still want to pass that note that says, “I think you are cute.” We do not mind getting grounded for staying out too late, because it was all worth that one last kiss. Our love is no longer contingent upon whether or not our parents feed us. It has now reorganized itself around whether or not they let us borrow the car to go on that date Friday night.
As we get a bit older, our sights and direction of our feelings change. We begin to notice friends of the opposite sex on the playground. We begin simulating roles of hero and damsel in distress. This occurs when we are on the playground at school, up until we reach our pubescent years on into sexual maturity. I chose a sonnet from William Shakespeare to display this concept of love. In his “Sonnet 138”, he goes into detail about how his love claims to be made of the truth. Yet, he knows this is not so. They are both young, but he claims to know more than she gives him credit for. “Love’s best habit is in seeming trust.” This is something we learn early on in our romantic relationships. Many a time, when the young think they love, the infatuation of it all takes over and causes heartbreak and despair. From all of our youthfulness and woes, we learn that a most demanding and sometimes irreconcilable piece of the love puzzle is trust.
As we age, we become more dynamic in our ideas of love. We now have pets and friends and children, all lf which we cherish dearly. We are finding new ways of expressing our desires and communicating our feelings. We invoke the right to be publicly affectionate because now we understand how to display it in an acceptable manner. We are watching our parents grow old, either with their first, second or third partners, or alone. We see how being happy with someone completes their soul, and how being alone can be miserable and lonely. We are reaching our prime age and understanding that a partner in life is more fulfilling than continuing to try to impress our parents and their friends. We may settle for someone not quite worthy of us, but we still need to feel whole. It is human nature to need to be accepted and a part of something or someone else. “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” by Anne Bradstreet is a poem about this connection between a husband and wife. When we come to that point in our life when we feel so completely enveloped in another person, so much so that we want to share everything we have with them, we truly appreciate what love really is. At this point, it is being sincere and frank with someone you honestly feel you cannot live without. I accept the idea that at this point, we can find our soul mate, but only if we have had eye opening experiences allowing us to realize when they walk into our hearts.
When we reach our later years, only then do we attempt to interpret the full spectrum of love which we have experienced. We remember what it was like to feel giddy and have butterflies in our stomach, yet now that is only a memory. We have grown as separate people, yet we grew up together. We reminisce about the times of old, and encourage our offspring to fall in and out of the experiences we once deemed worldly. We remind ourselves of some of the great moments we captured in a frame, and at night we lay down next to our love to sweetly dream. One of the most wondrous aspects of love is the possibility that when we wake up, we may lose it. Edgar Alan Poe drowns without his love, “Annabel Lee.” In this poem, he claims they are young wife and husband, and jealousy and envy rips her from his love and kills her so that he must go on living without her. I ask that we remember all we must have learned about love before we can truly feel the real pain it involves. To be the deepest and most immeasurably in love, you must find and cherish that person, not the one you can live with, but the one you cannot live without.
So from birth to death we encompass the emotion, the feeling and the idea, behind love. We start as babes loving only what we know. As we grow up and older, we learn so much more and accept the changes in our heads and our hearts. We change places with our parents and become parents to them as the cycle continues. We grow out of our rhymes and into our sonnets, hoping that we never have to experience the undying pain of the dying “Annabel Lee.” Without this depth, this twinge in our heart, our soul would not be complete. We could live without material things, and we could survive out on the streets. “Love is All You Need.”

“My Love”
-Mother Goose

Saw ye aught of my love a-coming from the market? A peck of meal upon her back, A babby in her basket;Saw ye aught of my love a-coming from the market?


“Jenny Kissed Me”
-James Henry Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.

“Sonnet 138”
-William Shakespeare
When my love swears that she is made of truthI do believe her though I know she lies,That she might think me some untutored youthUnlearned in the world's false subtleties.Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,Although she knows my days are past the best,Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.But wherefore says she not she is unjust,And wherefore say not I that I am old?O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,And age in love loves not to have years told.Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

“To My Dear And Loving Husband”
-Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.


“It Is At Moments After I Have Dreamed”
-E. E. Cummings

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when(being fool to fancy)i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

—turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
I watch the roses of the day grow deep.


“All You Need is Love”
-John Lennon, The Beatles

Love, Love, Love. Love, Love, Love. Love, Love, Love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.
Nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It's easy.
All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
Nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown. Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy.
All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
All you need is love (Paul: All together, now!) All you need is love. (Everybody!) All you need is love, love. Love is all you need (love is all you need).
Yee-hai! Oh yeah! She loves you, yeah yeah yeah. She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.


“Love is A Wonderful Thing”
-Michael Bolton
Birds fly, they don't think twiceThey simply spread their wingsThe sun shines, it don't ask whyOr what the whole thing meansThe same applies to you and IWe never question thatSo good, it's just understoodAin't no conjectureJust a matter of fact[Chorus:]Love is a wonderful thingMake ya smile through the pouring rainLove is a wonderful thingI'll say it again and againTurn your world into one sweet dreamTake your heart and make it singLove, love is a wonderful thingThe only thing a river knowsIs runnin' to the seaAnd every spring when a flower growsIt happens naturallyThe same magic when you're in my armsNo logic can defineDon't know why, just feels so rightI only know it happens every time[Chorus]Oh when the cold wind blowsI know you're gonna be there to warm meThat's what keeps me goin'And our sweet love will keep on growin'[Chorus]Love is a wonderful, wonderful thingLove is a wonderful, wonderful thingIt's what makes honey taste sweetIt's what makes your life complete

“Annabel Lee”
-Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the side of the sea.