[text: Wylie’s “Valentine” turns the usual love poem inside out. Instead of offering her heart to someone else, the speaker imagines it as a piece of fruit hanging too high for any bee or wasp to reach. If it falls on a cold night, she will wrap it in gold apple leaves, seal it with spice and salt in a silver cup, and hide it in a deep vault. But she does not store it away as an untouched relic. Before she dies, she insists she must eat the core and rind herself, even if it tastes of bitter gall. To manage that, she plans to eat wild honey with it, tasting something cool and chaste, like clover, as a private heaven before death. The mood is ritualistic and intense: proud, protective, a little eerie, and oddly ecstatic.]
Valentine — Summary
Too high, too high to pluck My heart shall swing. A fruit no bee shall suck, No wasp shall sting.
If on some night of cold It falls to ground In apple-leaves of gold I'll wrap it round.
And I shall seal it up With spice and salt, In a carven silver cup, In a deep vault.
Before my eyes are blind And my lips mute, I must eat core and rind Of that same fruit.
Before my heart is dust At the end of all, Eat it I must, I must Were it bitter gall.
But I shall keep it sweet By some strange art; Wild honey I shall eat When I eat my heart.
O honey cool and chaste As clover's breath! Sweet Heaven I shall taste Before my death.