So, for St Valentine’s day… John E. Logan was a Canadian poet born in 1852… and that is about all I can find out about him; he may have been a professor of English, or that may have been someone with the same name. He was published in many anthologies, and I have come across some of his other work.
What struck me, and might strike others too, is the first line of this sonnet… It reminded me of another equally romantic line, written over a century later by someone else…
The Harmonies of Silence
So more than beautiful you looked to-night
In some calm moments, as if perfect good
Alone made up your sum of womanhood,
It seemed so needless that your eyes were bright,
So little that your thought could wing its flight
In faithful cadence to my varying mood:
The very music of your voice was rude
Awakening from the silence’s delight.
Oh! There are moments when the soul can read
The knowledge writ in darkness, and can hear
The harmonies of silence like a song.
There is no truth, if this belief be wrong;
To-night you lived such moments, and I, near,
Caught echoes of an anthem and a creed.
John E. Logan
… and what it reminded me of:
Lois Elsden 