Abigail's Valentine's Day Page
A collection of many Valentine Day ideas
including easy to do Valentine Crafts for the kids. Find Valentine history
trivia, poetry, Valentine's Day cookies and candy and suggestions for a
Valentine's Day romantic dinner. Remember your Valentine on February 14th.
"Oft have I heard both youth and virgin say
Birds choose their mates, and couples too, this day;
But by their flight I never can divine,
When I shall couple with my Valentine."
is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate
designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising
and linking to amazon.com
Valentine's Day History
- Valentine's Day is believed to have had its
beginnings in a Roman festival called the Lupercalia. The early Roman men often
wore the names of the girls who were to be their partners during the Lupercalia
pinned to their sleeves. And thus came the saying "wearing your heart on
- The story goes that when the Roman empire wars broke
out married men did not want to leave their families, younger men did not want
to leave their sweethearts. As a result of the low enrollment of men to fight
the wars, Claudius the Cruel ordered that no more marriages or engagements
should be celebrated. A priest, named Valentine, defied the order and married
young couples in secrecy. When Claudius found out he had Valentine dragged off
and imprisoned, where he died. What he did for young lovers was remembered and
is still celebrated on St. Valentine's Day.
- The 17th century hopeful maiden ate a hard-boiled egg
and pinned five bay leaves to her pillow before going to sleep on Valentine's
eve. It was believed this would make her dream of her future husband.
- The Duke of Orleans is believed to have made the
first valentine card. Imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1415, he wrote love
poems, or "valentines," to his wife in France.
- Elaborate cards trimmed with satin ribbons,
mother-of-pearl ornaments, and spun glass were sold during the Civil War.
- The celebration, the tradition goes on or with
flowers, with heart-shaped candies, with lacy valentines whose frills and
furbelows hiding the initials of the sender, we honor the good priest who
disobeyed Claudius the Cruel.
Valentine's Day Poetry
LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS
a Sonnet by William Shakepeare (1564 -
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee ? Let me count the
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life !--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
by Daniel O'Connell
If sweethearts were sweethearts always,
Whether as maid or wife,
Not a drop would be half as pleasant
In the mingle of draught of life.
But the sweetheart has smiles and blushes
When the wife has frowns and sighs,
And the wife's have a wrathful glitter
For the glow of the sweetheart's eyes.
If lovers were lovers always,
The same to sweetheart and wife,
Who would change for a future of Eden
The joys of this checkered life?
But husbands grow grave and silent,
And c