Why February, Not May: The Aesthetics of Early Love

Patmore's central argument is counterintuitive: Valentine's Day is celebrated in February—when flowers barely bloom and the year is barely awake—rather than in May when everything is in full bloom. This timing is not accidental; it's the poem's entire point.

Early love is more intense *because* it's incomplete and threatened. The snowdrop is 'Fair as the rash oath of virginity'—both are fragile, first attempts, promises made before experience teaches caution. May's roses are 'heap'd upon her laughing brows,' but the speaker celebrates February's 'peaceful poignancy' instead. Patmore is arguing that love at its moment of declaration—uncertain, unproven, about to be tested—carries more emotional weight than love at its fullest bloom.

This is why the poem fills with contradictions: 'joy contrite,' 'Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight.' These aren't confused feelings—they're the specific texture of early love, which contains both hope and the knowledge that hope can be broken. By celebrating Valentine's Day in February, Patmore celebrates love's vulnerability as its greatest strength.

The Seraph's Sphere: Transcendence Over Physical Satisfaction

When the mistress turns away from the kiss and asks for 'much more than bliss,' Patmore introduces a theological note. She wants something beyond physical pleasure—something 'exceeding sweet,' something that involves 'the Seraph's sigh' and 'Love's natural hope.' A seraph is the highest order of angel; Patmore is suggesting that true love aspires toward the transcendent, not the sensual.

This reframes the entire poem as spiritual rather than erotic. The 'peaceful poignancy' that fills everything—from blackbirds to fishermen to children—is not sexual desire but a kind of cosmic longing. Earth itself 'Uttering first-love's first cry' with 'a Seraph's sigh' because love is fundamentally about renouncing earthly satisfaction in favor of something higher. The final image—replacing dead innocence with living birds—suggests that love requires sacrifice and renewal, not fulfillment. Patmore is writing about love as an aspiration toward the divine, which is why its incompleteness in February is more powerful than its completion in May.

Coventry Patmore

Saint Valentine's Day

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold

In vestal February;

February over May

Patmore deliberately places Valentine's Day in barren February rather than fertile May. This reversal matters: he's arguing that early, uncertain love is more powerful than love at its peak.

Not rather choosing out some rosy day

From the rich coronet of the coming May,

When all things meet to marry!

O, quick, praevernal Power

That signall'st punctual through the sleepy mould

The Snowdrop's time to flower,

Fair as the rash oath of virginity

Snowdrop as virginity

The snowdrop is the first flower of spring—Patmore compares it to 'the rash oath of virginity.' He's linking early blooming (and early promises) to fragility and risk.

Which is first-love's first cry;

O, Baby Spring,

That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth

A month before the birth;

Oxymoronic emotion

Notice the contradictions: 'peaceful poignancy,' 'joy contrite,' 'Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight.' Patmore is describing a specific emotional state—the bittersweet ache of early love—not general melancholy.

Whence is the peaceful poignancy,

The joy contrite,

Oxymoronic emotion

Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight,

That burthens now the breath of everything,

Though each one sighs as if to each alone

The cherish'd pang were known?

At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart,

All creation participates

From line 21 onward, Patmore shows birds, hills, fishermen, and children all experiencing the same emotional season. Valentine's Day isn't private—it's a cosmic event.

With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's heart;

In evening's hush

About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush;

The hill with like remorse

Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course;

The fisher's drooping skiff

In yonder sheltering bay;

The choughs that call about the shining cliff;

The children, noisy in the setting ray;

Own the sweet season, each thing as it may;

Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace

In me increase;

And tears arise

Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes,

And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss,

Ask from Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss!

Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet

Desire electing defeat

Love chooses to lose. Patmore frames early love as deliberately self-limiting—the lover knows May will come and destroy February's intensity, yet celebrates it anyway.

Desire electing defeat

Love chooses to lose. Patmore frames early love as deliberately self-limiting—the lover knows May will come and destroy February's intensity, yet celebrates it anyway.

Of dear Desire electing his defeat?

Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope

Uttering first-love's first cry,

Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh,

Love's natural hope?

Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury!

Earth's perjury

Earth swears vows in February (through the snowdrop's first cry) but breaks them in May when full bloom arrives. Patmore uses legal language—'perjury'—to describe nature's contradiction.

Behold, all-amorous May,

With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows,

Avoids thee of thy vows!

Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near,

To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere?

Forget thy foolish words;

Go to her summons gay,

Dead innocencies

The nest fills with 'dead, wing'd Innocencies' after the hawk kills the old birds. Love must shed innocence to mature—a dark image of how Valentine's Day marks the end of something as much as the beginning.

Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd,

Ev'n as a nest with birds

Dead innocencies

After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd.

Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate

The noon of thy soft ecstasy,

Or e'er it be too late,

Or e'er the Snowdrop die!

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