crowdog66 ◾ ◾ Love poems for Valentine's Day

Two of my favorite poems of all time...

We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd
by Walt Whitman (1900)

We two, how long we were fool'd,
Now transmuted, we swiftly escape as Nature escapes,
We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings
and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vegetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic
and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling
over each other and interwetting each other,
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious,
impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence
of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we
two,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

When I Heard At The Close of Day
by Walt Whitman (1900)

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been received with plaudits in the capitol,
still it was not a happy night for me that followed.
And else, when I caroused, or when my plans were accomplished, still I was not happy.
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refreshed, singing,
inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wandered alone over the beach, and undressed bathed, laughing with the cool waters,
and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming --
O, then I was happy.
O, then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourished me more,
and the beautiful day passed well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly, continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me,
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast -- and that night I was happy.