My true-love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a better bargain driven.
New hearts for old. What a risk to take. My father had no idea what it would involve or how painful it would be; and it was, he tells me. One thing is sure: without my father’s recent change of heart, he wouldn’t feel any pain now… or ever again. Indeed, if he hadn’t given his heart away to my mother three quarters of a century ago, he wouldn’t feel any pain this coming St Valentine’s Day. (Nor would I ever have felt the sun on my face.)
Not scientifically accurate, perhaps, but universally understood. If you want love, you have to give your love away: no new life in your veins without losing the old. My two favourite carols end with the same message. Offer thy heart to the infant king. Yet what I can I give him ”“ give my heart.
There’s no knowing where it could lead, or what pain it might entail.
As far as I know, Anne is not a relative, but I have always enjoyed her writing. This piece I found especially touching, enhanced, perhaps, because of her comment about her two favourite carols.
Thanks to the Elves, I have had several opportunities to hear different choirs sing my grandfather’s version of Cornelius’s “The Three Kings”. I thought Andrew Nethsinga’s St John’s choir sang it beautifully in their recent Epiphany Carol Service. The balance and phrasing was excellent and the slight diminuendo of the choir at the end allows the tenor’s final “Offer Thy Heart” to be felt with all the poignancy that underlies the magnitude of the gift.