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Unheard Melodies
The most romantic of lovers is often in love with love. For them it’s the feeling that matters, not necessarily the person who inspires it.
"Heard melodies are sweet/But those unheard are sweeter."
So claimed John Keats in his 1820 poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Like many poets of the Romantic era, Keats found the real world, with its impermanence and decay, to be less attractive than the imagination where memories can be preserved, often in an exaggerated form, and revisited indefinitely. As Keats looked upon the urn and the sculpted reliefs depicting lovers in "mad pursuit," frozen forever in the initial throes of passion, he was not despairing but celebratory. These lovers will never suffer the disappointments of reality. Their passion will not fade with the flowers, nor fall prey to the ravages of time.
"When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe."
Lovely though it is, Keats’s poem reveals how a love of romance can be a hindrance to finding true love. A preoccupation with the ideal, with what could be rather than what is, may leave you sitting at home on Saturday night, accompanied by a book of Keats, but not by a lover.
Some romantics crave an ecstasy that is simply impossible to achieve. Someone brings you flowers, but do you react as joyously as they imagined you would when they were buying them? If not, they may keep looking for a person who follows their self-penned script more faithfully. Or if you’re the romantic, did your lover present those flowers in the way you envisioned, with heartfelt kisses and flowery words reminiscent of a passage from your favorite romantic novel? Or did they merely dump them in your lap, satisfied that they did their romantic duty for the day?
The most romantic of lovers is often in love with love. For them it’s the feeling that matters, not necessarily the person who inspires it. Like Keats when praising the images on the urn, the romantic is captivated by an ideal that doesn’t exist in the hum-drum world of everyday life. Some romantics may never make a move, preferring to love from afar rather than risk letting reality shatter their illusions.
If they do make a move, their expectations may doom the relationship. When they’re holding you tight, they may be thinking about your waistline, and wondering, will it expand? And when you kiss, their eyes may wander to your hairline. Will it recede? Will age leave you as wilted as the flowers that were once so lovely but are doomed to sag in their vases as their fragrance fades? And as the passion cools, as the demands of everyday life interfere with romantic bliss, will he pack up and leave because the thrill of the chase was more exciting than the capture?
Romance is a wonderful aspect of a love relationship, and keeping romance alive is one way to keep a relationship fresh and stimulating. But a relationship built on nothing but romance may be doomed from the start. The pursuit of an ideal in a world in which all roads lead to the grave can be self-defeating. Reality isn’t perfect, but it’s the only concrete thing we’ve got.
There’s nothing quite as sweet as a romantic lover, one who showers you with kisses and caresses, brings you flowers and other gifts, and emphasizes the love in lovemaking where too many are myopically focused on sex. Such people are in short supply, especially in a gay bar, but if you’re fortunate enough to find one, make sure they are grounded, too, content to listen to melodies that both of you can hear. They may enjoy reading Keats, but still knows there’s more to love than the romantic musings of a poet.
by Brian W. Fairbanks
 Back to Alt. Lifestyles
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