Poem of the Week

 
This week's poem is What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? by Walt Whitman.  I thought it was the perfect poem to represent my return to writing because it truly represents what this blog is all about.  I do not write about big things or dramatic things, there are plenty of novelists, playwrights and screenwriters to do that.  I do not write for fame or popularity or glory. I simply write to pay homage to the simple things, the daily things, the oft-overlooked things that all come together to make something beautiful.  I want to chronicle the everyday loves and loses, joys and sorrows, blessings trivialities, quirks and simple things that accidentally collide and collaborate into the poem of that thing we call life. 

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record? 
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the 
offing to-day under full sail? 
The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that  
envelops me? 
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? —no; 
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst 
of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, 
The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kiss'd him, 
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.
  
Love,
-H 

Good to be Back...

Hi!

Sooo.... hemmm....ugh... yea, I sort of disappeared for a loooong time.

About that, well I sort of fell into a bottomless pit of despair and it took a while to claw myself out. More on that at a later date...

The point is, I am back and things here should be back to running smoothly.  I've missed blogging and I can't wait to start up again.  The Poem of the Week will be back on Sunday and I have a bunch of half finished posts from March and April that I hope to finish up.  I'm also hoping to make a few updates to the blog, but my tech skills leave much to be desired so we'll see how that goes.

It's good to be back!

Love,

-H

Poem of the Week

Alas, winter has ended, and so in honour of the changing seasons which often mark the changes in our own lives, this week's poem is After the Winter by Claude McKay.  Nature has such a profound impact on our moods and outlook, and I like to pay homage to that.  Winter is a contemplative time - assessing our progress over the past year, trying to figure out what comes next and where we go.  Spring, on the other hand, is such a hopeful time - everything feels fresh and new; life is full of sunshine and possibilities. I always love the arrival of spring and feeling like absolutely anything wonderful can happen.  Happy spring and happy reading!
 

After the Winter

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves

And against the morning’s white

The shivering birds beneath the eaves

Have sheltered for the night,

We’ll turn our faces southward, love,

Toward the summer isle

Where bamboos spire the shafted grove

And wide-mouthed orchids smile.
 

And we will seek the quiet hill

Where towers the cotton tree,

And leaps the laughing crystal rill,

And works the droning bee.

And we will build a cottage there

Beside an open glade,

With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,

And ferns that never fade.

 

- H

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is Magic by Shel Silverstein. I absolutely adored Shel Silverstein as a child, so in a fit of nostalgia I thought I'd share a little dose of those happy memories with you. I've always been fascinated with magic - both the wild, fantasy type belonging to books and dramatizations, as well as the everyday type found in a perfect sunset, a summer garden, a rainbow, a mother's love. There is magic all around us if we chose to see it, if we chose to participate in its creation. I hope you all find a bit of magic in your lives. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Top 'o the mornin' to ya!

Magic

Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins' gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf,
But all the magic I have known
I've had to make myself.

- H

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is hollow places by Erin Morgenstern.  Sometimes I have bad days/weeks and I don't really know how to describe it except for with the poem - this is one of those times... 

hollow places

Sometimes I forget who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing.

All the me-ness slips away and I feel hollow and confused.

Dizzy and light, like my feet aren’t on the ground.

I can’t even cry, because I don’t know what to cry about.

I don’t know why it happens.

I can’t even tell how long it lasts.

It is an always feeling once I’m in it, never-ending, never-begun.

All I can do is stay very still and press my fingers to my lips to keep the thoughts or secrets or cries or lies or truths or whatever else is left from slipping out.

So they can stay inside and fill the hollow spaces.

While I wait to feel like myself again.

- H

P.S. Bear with me if my posts aren't up to snuff this week...

[Edit - March, 24th]  I highly recommend that you visit Erin's website and read her incredible "Flax-Golden Tales" that she posts each Friday (accompanied by some equally amazing photography).  Also, if you have not yet read Erin's stunning debut novel, The Night Circus, then please, please, please pick up a copy and prepare to be amazed.  It is a beautiful, tragic, poignant, magical, romantic, mysterious, utterly fantastic story and one of the best books I have read in years, maybe ever...

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.  Maybe it's just me, but I have always found something dangerously romantic about pirates, highwaymen and other rakes from eras long past, so this poem has long been one of my favourites.  Even a little liked high-school English teacher with a knack for butchering any and all works of literature was unable to ruin this poem for me.  I'm going to be stuck on a long road trip today and that got me thinking roads...highway...highwayman... Anyway, since I have about 8 hours on the road ahead of me, I figured it would be only fair to post a bit of a lengthy poem.  I hope your day is more exciting than mine and you enjoy the read!

The Highwayman 
Part One
I

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

V

'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'

VI

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.
Part Two

I

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

II

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

III

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
'Now, keep good watch!' and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .

VI

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

VII

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

VIII

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

X

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. 

Isn't is just so tragically romantic?
-H

Under Review | Secret Daughter

I just finished reading Shilpi Somaya Gowda's gorgeous debut novel Secret Daughter, and I am completely awed.  I've had the book sitting on my shelf for about 2 years, and I've picked it up many times, but I wasn't in the right 'headspace' to read the book then.  My mom recently was given a copy of the book by one of her friends and started to read it, which reminded me of my own copy and I decided to give it a try.  I wasn't really sure what to expect but it completely blew me away.  

The book was nuanced, poignant and heart-achingly honest.  The intricacies, trials and triumphs of mother-daughter relationships were navigated with deep insight and careful realism; nothing was over-dramatized or depicted with fictitious perfection.  The realities of struggling mothers, children and families in India was portrayed with a subtlety that  evoked more of an emotional response from the reader than overtly graphic descriptions would have.  I came to love the characters - their faults, their strengths, their hopes, their regrets, their passion.  Writing from various perspectives and having a plot that extends several decades can often be a challenge, but Shilpi Somaya Gowda managed to strengthen her narrative by allowing the reader to see through the eyes of six pivotal characters, and seamlessly carrying the thread of the story through many years so the growth and development of the three main female characters can be clearly expressed.  It was a brilliant tale about family, love, loss, faith, culture, the disparities between genders, classes and nations, and self discovery.

The story certainly wasn't a chapter out of Pleasantville, but it was real.  I'm a big supporter of 'truth' in writing - maybe the plot of a novel has never actually taken place in the 'real world', but the essence of the tale, the personalities and actions of the characters, the likeliness of certain events can all be true to the human experience and the world in which we live.  Reading should challenge you to think, expand your horizons, lay your emotions bare and allow yourself to be vulnerable.  Only then are we truly receptive to a story and able to learn/grow from it.  Secret Daughter certainly facilitates such an experience.

I hope you will consider reading Secret Daughter; I'm giving it five golden-stars and a massive recommendation.  Happy Reading!

- H

Overview

SECRET DAUGHTER is a NY Times, USA Today, IndieBound and #1 International Bestseller. Foreign rights have sold in 23 countries.

Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be — she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco — until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children.

The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter's life by giving her away. It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.

Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinies of these two women. We follow both families, invisibly connected until Asha's journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.

Compulsively readable and deeply touching, SECRET DAUGHTER is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms.

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is Dreams by Langston Hughes.  It's a short and sweet one for a change, but it's message is rather powerful.  I have always believed in the power of dreams and may often be  caught lost in a daydream; to me dreams are how we come to know ourselves, how we connect with our inner longings and core beliefs, how we assess where we're at, where we've come from and where we'd like to go.  Sometimes people tell you that your dreams are foolish, ridiculous or childish, but I feel sorry for those people because they are lacking the beauty of hope in their lives.  Never stop dreaming, never stop fighting for your dreams - we only have one life to live so we should make it count and live it in a way that will leave us with no regrets about missed opportunities or lost hope.  I'd rather be happy and true to myself than successful in terms of some artificial social construct.  I hope that you hold fast to your dreams as well.  Enjoy!

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

- H

Quotable | Valentine's Edition

I have a thing for quotes.  I'm terrible at remembering them or using them to make snappy comebacks in conversation, but I love them nonetheless.  I've always been amazed by the power of a word, a phrase, a sentence - how one person's words can transcend time and distance to inspire another person a lifetime, a world away.  Sometimes you feel like nobody else understands precisely what you are feeling, experiencing, enduring and then you find a verse from a poem, a line of lyrics from a song, a snippet of a speech given eons ago, and suddenly you realize that you are not alone.  Someone else in the course of human history went through what you are going through and you feel connected to the world, the past, the present and the future because maybe something you say or write or sing will be passed through the ages and resonate with distant generations. 

So yes, I have a thing for quotes so I thought it would be nice to post a bunch of love-related ones in the spirit of the holiday.  Here it goes...

Relationships

If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.
- A. A. Milne, Winne-the-Pooh

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
- Elbert Hubbard

I wonder what thou and I did, till we loved.  Were we not weaned till then? 
- John Donne

We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.
- Robert Fulghum, True Love 

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. 
- Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice   

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

- Alfred Tennyson

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape.” 
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot. 
- Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby  

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
- Nicole Krauss, The History of Love  

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…" he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
"What a stupid lamb," I sighed.
"What a sick, masochistic lion.”  
- Stephenie Meyer, Twilight  
 

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday.” 

- Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
- Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets 

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough..”
- Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

 

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.” 

- Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay 

 He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest. 
- W. H. Auden
 

What is Love?

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist 

You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
- Dr. Seuss

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
- The Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.
- J.K. Rowling

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice  

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.
- Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever 

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones 

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land 
  
Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."  Mature love says: "I need you because I love you."
- Erich Fromm 

“Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it.”
 - Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember  

Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.
- Germaine de Stael 
 

Inspirational

Where there is love there is life.
- Mahatma Gandhi 

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
- The Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), John 13:34-35

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
- Mother Teresa 
  

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.  
- Lao Tzu
 

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

- Mother Teresa

  

Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

- Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam

“Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.”
- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

 
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
- William Shakespeare

Just The Way You Are

We love the things we love for what they are.  
- Robert Frost

Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another!
- Jane Austen, Emma  

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. 

- Mother Teresa 

“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”
 - Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper 
 

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you can spend it with your loved ones.

Love,

- H

Real (Love and Fears)

I recently got a hold of Maroon 5's new(ish) record, Overexposed, and I have found my new favourite song - Love Somebody.  Sometimes love songs are so bloody cheerful you want to lose your lunch; nothing is that perfect, and the fake-ness is pretty disgusting actually.  Other love songs are whiny and morose and generally drive you to bash your head against a hard surface.  Maybe that's just me ... In any event, I like things that are real, honest, open and this song is exactly that.  It is very rare to come across a song about love that has such a degree of realism.

Sometimes we feel broken or empty or both, but it's okay to reach out to someone, to love them and let them love you.  Loving someone isn't easy either, I don't think that any of the truly great things in life are.  Love is big and scary - it isn't a cliche when people say that love changes everything.  You suddenly have a responsibility to another person; you have to put their needs first, be accountable to them, you can no longer make decision on your own.  That's a huge change, so it's only logical for us to feel a bit lost, a little bit adrift because we know that if we make that step and open ourselves up to someone else we can't go back, we can't be the same people we were before.  And sometimes we can't help who we love, we can't stop ourselves from loving someone - we can try to push them away, try to resist the change, but they're already a part of us.  We're halfway there, but we need help from the other person to take the final step.  That's scary too because we have no control over how another person feels, reacts, behaves - we can't make them love us or make them stay.  It's all just a giant leap of faith....

but I think it's worth the risk.

Love,

- H

Love Somebody

I know your inside, you're feeling so hollow
And it's a hard pill for you to swallow
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
I really wanna love somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way
You can take me all the way

I really wanna touch somebody
I think about you every single day
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way
You can take me all the way
You're such a hard act for me to follow
Love me today don't leave me tomorrow, yeah
But if I fall for you, I'll never recover
If I fall for you, I'll never be the same
I really wanna love somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way
You can take me all the way
 
I really wanna touch somebody
I think about you every single day
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way 
You can take me all the way
Oh, oh, oh, oh
I don't know where to start, I'm just a little lost
I wanna feel like we never gonna ever stop
I don't know what to do, I'm right in front of you
Asking you to stay, you should stay, stay with me tonight, yeah
I really wanna love somebody
I really wanna dance the night away
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way
You can take me all the way
 
I really wanna touch somebody
I think about you every single day
I know we're only half way there
But you can take me all the way
You can take me all the way
Oh, oh, oh, oh
You can take me all the way 
You can take me all the way

Just a Little Romance

I have always been intrigued by the Song of Songs.  The passages of the Bible were chosen very carefully, and it is a known fact that many scrolls, many authors were left out because at the time of compilation they were not deemed to be acceptable.  So why leave in such a blatantly romantic, rather sensual love poem? It baffles me. My teachers used to explain it away with "divine inspiration" when the Bible was compiled and religious leaders needing to show examples of what matrimony should be like between a man and woman, but I never really bought any of that.  The Song of Songs just seems so out of character for the religious textbook - the tone, the style, the content all stick out like a sore thumb.  But it's beautiful.  I'm inclined to believe that someone allowed it to sneak in because they were simply struck by its beauty, its openness and rawness.  Being the silly romantic that I am, I just want to believe that when people were setting down the foundations of my faith, that someone at the table was just a little romantic too...

Song of Solomon 1
 

1 The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

Colloquy of Bride and Friends

² Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine,
³     your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is perfume poured out;
    therefore the maidens love you.
⁴ Draw me after you, let us make haste.
    The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will exult and rejoice in you;
    we will extol your love more than wine;
    rightly do they love you.

⁵ I am black and beautiful,
    O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
    like the curtains of Solomon.
⁶ Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
    because the sun has gazed on me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me;
    they made me keeper of the vineyards,
    but my own vineyard I have not kept!
⁷ Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
    where you pasture your flock,
    where you make it lie down at noon;
for why should I be like one who is veiled
    beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸ If you do not know,
    O fairest among women,
follow the tracks of the flock,
    and pasture your kids
    beside the shepherds’ tents.

Colloquy of Bridegroom, Friends, and Bride

⁹ I compare you, my love,
    to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.
¹⁰ Your cheeks are comely with ornaments,
    your neck with strings of jewels.
¹¹ We will make you ornaments of gold,
    studded with silver.

¹² While the king was on his couch,
    my nard gave forth its fragrance.
¹³ My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh
    that lies between my breasts.
¹⁴ My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
    in the vineyards of En-gedi.

¹⁵ Ah, you are beautiful, my love;
    ah, you are beautiful;
    your eyes are doves.
¹⁶ Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved,
    truly lovely.
Our couch is green;
¹⁷     the beams of our house are cedar,
    our rafters are pine.

- The Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

For what its worth, I'm very glad that this poem made it in. 
 

Love,

- H