Saint Valentine's Day (repost)

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

Abe
Senior Member

since 2003-05-28

Posts 694
Looks like Vero Beach, FL until the end!

0 posted 2009-02-13 08:58 AM

SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY

As early as the Fourth, B.C.
Back in the Roman Nation
A girl was assigned a boy
For a one year duration.

Eight hundred years, a practice
Till church fathers sought its end
They found the answer in Valentine
Who was martyred at his life’s end.

Some two hundred years before
An edict by Claudius-II
Forbade marriage in the Empire
(Not too smart a thing to do!)

There were forces from within
And threats from lands all about
The soldier’s wives and families
He thought, they could do without.

He wanted all his Armies
To have but one thing on their mind
Hoped that one Love, of Country
Would make them a special kind.

Valentine, a church bishop
Saw young Lovers in their pain
He met them in a secret place
Brought matrimony back again.

He joined them in the sacrament
Helped them make their marriage vow
Going against the Emperor’s wishes
More than his laws would allow.

He learned of this “friend of lovers”
And had him placed under arrest
Tried to convert him to the Roman Gods
But Valentine withstood that test.

He even tried to turn the tables
Show Claudius the Christian way
Knowing he would be executed
For that was the law of the day.

While Valentine awaited his fate
He made friends with his jailor
Who had a daughter who was blind
Who searched for a miraculous cure.

Well, Valentine restored her sight
Through his faith he claimed, divine
Wrote a last farewell note to her
And signed it, “From Your Valentine.”

February twenty-four, Two Seventy
He was executed for his “crime”
And thus became a Patron Saint
To be remembered for all time.

There was an annual festival
Young Romans wrote greetings of Love
To young ladies they longed to court
Which Valentine oversaw from above.

The cards were named after him
The Fourteenth chosen as the date
When those messages were passed around
To try to change the Lover’s fate.

One of the earliest cards known sent
Was by a Duke in Fourteen-Fifteen
Preserved in the British Museum
Where, still today it can be seen.

And to this day, around the World
We still send those cards to Lovers
Asking, “Valentine, will you be mine?”
And sometimes, we even ask some others.

Del "Abe" Jones
Mankind's greatest accomplishment is not the revolution of technology, it is the evolution of creativity. copyright 1984

Margherita
Member Seraphic

since 2003-02-08

Posts 22236
Eternity

1 posted 2009-02-13 12:57 PM

How interesting and beautifully written, dear Abe!

This is precious!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love,
Margherita

"Love is the One who masters all things;
I am mastered totally by Love."
(Rumi)

Bonnie j
Senior Member

since 2003-06-27

Posts 1588
Ohio

2 posted 2009-02-14 12:37 PM

Thanks for the info. It is so interesting when a little history is added to fine words of poetry.
Hugs
BonBon

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.