Thursday, February 15, 2007

A poem for Valentine's Day

What better than some Byron for the most romantic day of the year?
I love this setion from Don Juan so much I used it in Stormcrow Castle. As the book opens, Helena has received an offer of marriage from a respectable man, but she wants more than financial security from marriage. She's looking for a man who can make her heart quake - and she finds him at Stormcrow Castle.


A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
And beauty, all concentrating like rays
Into one focus, kindled from above;
Such kisses as belong to early days,
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
And the blood 's lava, and the pulse a blaze,
Each kiss a heart-quake,-- for a kiss's strength,
I think, it must be reckon'd by its length.

By length I mean duration; theirs endured
Heaven knows how long-- no doubt they never reckon'd;
And if they had, they could not have secured
The sum of their sensations to a second:
They had not spoken; but they felt allured,
As if their souls and lips each other beckon'd,
Which, being join'd, like swarming bees they clung--
Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.

Amanda

No comments: