today we are obliged to be romantic...

A few days after I met my woman-friend, I deleted my online dating profile. 

I had spent hours using every last bit of my literary and photoshop skill to present myself as an articulate, interesting dude with a truly compelling head of hair. I'd answered hundreds of questions. I'd tweaked. I'd twanged. But after I met her I deleted it all forever, just like that. 

How could I not?

Here was a woman whose multiple weirdnesses lined up fantastically well with my own. Frugal as the day is long, literate as the book-stacks are high, and kind as a hug is wide. A woman who taught herself to read like an adult at age four. Whose favorite book is a crawling Russian novel. Who speaks five languages. A woman who'll play Legos with my son for hours... and enjoy it.

And sexy? Hmmmmm.

[bites knuckles - proceeds]

The best thing about her though, on a day like today (Valentine's Day), is that she is utterly, ruthlessly un-romantic. She hates sentimentalism of any kind, loathes romantic comedies, and is zero percent interested in being plied with roses and romantic poetry (although she'll accept any such gestures in the spirit in which they were given).

She's not heartless... she just understands that "being in love" is about a succession of moments spent being loving, not a few fast-firing synapses in the brain. 

For today, then, I have decided to waste no energy on writing an original romantic poem in a vain attempt to manipulate her synapses into electrification. Instead I have cobbled together a poem from thirty different first lines of thirty of the most romantic poems in the English language. I figure this way I'll satisfy my urge to make mad, romantic gestures, while simultaneously meta-mocking the sameness and predictability of romanticism of all kinds. 

Enjoy: 

Today we are obliged to be romantic

If questioning would make us wise

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

At last, when all the summer shine

Sweet stream that winds through yonder glade,

O, hurry, where by water, among the trees

The fountains mingle with the river,

If ever two were one, then surely we.

I love thee as I love the calm

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

Light, so low upon the earth

Since there’s not help, come let us kiss and part;

And in Life’s noisiest hour

We shall be notes in that great Symphony

Touched by all that love is

If ever two were one, then surely we.

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks

Love seeketh not itself to please

Come to me in my dreams, and then

I arise from dreams of thee.

All day long I have been working

When I have fears that I may cease to be.

Bid me to live, and I will live

If ever two were one, then surely we.

The wondrous moment of our meeting…

It was many and many a year ago

I ne’er was struck before that hour

Passing stranger! you do not know

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

If ever two were one, then surely we.

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks

If ever two were one, then surely we.

- - -

And the sources, for the curious:

If Questioning Would Make Us Wise, Christopher Brennan

To Lucasta: Going to the Wars, Richard Lovelace

i carry your heart, e.e. cummings

At Last, Elizabeth Akers Allen

To a Young Lady, William Cowper

The Ragged Wood, Wm Butler Yeats

Love's Philosophy, Percy Bysshe Shelley

To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet

I Love Thee, Eliza Acton

Bright Star, John Keats

Marriage Morning, Lord Alfred Tennyson

Idea 61: Since there's no help, Come, let us kiss and part! Michael Drayton

The Presence of Love, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Panthea, Oscar Wilde

Confession, Frantisek Halas

To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet

Sonnet IX, Pablo Neruda

The Clod and The Pebble, William Blake

Longing, Matthew Arnold

The Indian Serenade, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Madonna of the Evening Flowers, Amy Lowell

When I have fears that I may cease to be, John Keats

To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything, Robert Herrick

To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet

Wondrous Moment, Alexander Pushkin

Annabelle Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

First Love, John Clare

To a Stranger, Walt Whitman

Sonnet 44, Wm Shakespeare

Sonnet XIII, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Glimpse, Walt Whitman

To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet

Sonnet IX, Pablo Neruda

To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet