When I was little, about 7 or 8, my dad gave me a book. It was a tan, moleskin book of poems published around the 1900s. It was a rather dog-eared copy with dark marbled pages inside the cover. Much of its delicately printed content was blotted with stains, or pages were altogether missing. The gold-rimmed cover and beautifully embossed title revealed it to be a book of "101 Best Poems". Charming speckles of mould framed the writing of poets from across the world and across time.
Being 7 or 8, I had no idea what any of the poems meant, really. But all I knew is that it was a very exciting book. It was like a treasure book! Like how you see in the movies. The texture of the cover was pleasing to touch and felt expensive. It had a reassuringly musty smell and dark stains, like it had been through life a few times already and didn't care for a wash. The poems used words like "thou" and "bequeathed", "ye" and "thine". Yes. This was definitely a book from like in the films.
Over time, thumbing through it mainly via torch light under the covers in bed (and appreciating the book's musk - grubby child that I was!), I memorised the very first poem in that book. A short poem about love by an unknown author.
It went like this:
Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for my constant heart,
For these may fail, or turn to ill.
So thou and I must sever.
Keep therefore a true woman’s eye,
And love me still, but know not why,
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.
Granted, I had to Google the full poem now to make sure I remembered it correctly (which for the most part I did! Hooray, memory!), but in doing so I found out the author of the poem! This was quite a revelation since the book I so loved said the author was Anon. In between moving from Hong Kong where I grew up to the UK, I have since lost this book (although I sincerely hope it's hiding cosily in an attic box somewhere gathering some more mouldy freckles). But I remember it dearly, so I was excited to finally find out the author. I can put you out of your misery and tell you it was written sometime in the 16th or 17th century by one John Wilbye, an apparently well-known English madrigal composer.
So where do ill severed eyes come in, you ask? Well, being little when I read the poem, I was fixated by the line "keep therefore a true woman's eye" and I took it rather literally. So my reasoning followed something like this:
Someone keeping a woman's eye. Perhaps in their pocket. And then I thought about getting ill...and maybe gooey.
And then what about the "sever" bit?? Sever. Like SEVERED.
A severed ill, gooey eye! In the pocket of your loved one! YUK!
This all greatly appealed to my grubby little imagination, of course. How wickedly gruesome!
And how, do you ask, does Valentine's really feature in all of this? Well, in thinking about this poem today I realised I've never told anyone about this book I loved. Nor had I told anyone about this poem I had such loony imaginings of. Particularly the bit about dismembered eyes floating about in a beloved's pocket somewhere.
And I wanted to tell someone - I felt the urge to tell a specific someone. Because when you're in love, you want to tell them about these random memories. The life changing moments, the times of hardship, the raucous and embarrassing stories, your favourite foods, your feel-good films, what your job actually means (forget the silly job title), your favourite tea mug - these are the things those close to us know about us! But for me, it's those random, seemingly far aware and probably unimportant memories from either your childhood or a decade long ago that you want to share with those that you love.
It is convenient that the poem I remembered from a book I treasured so long ago is about love (although I had to read it again a few times to get the full gist! I still think of severed eyes even now) and so I wanted to share it with you too, this Valentine's Day.
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