The Heavy Tread
I’m attempting to memorize Shakespeare’s sonnet number 148, one I enjoyed when I first read it and one I have been drawn back to.

I love the realism here—the way he loves this woman knowing who she really is.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red that her lips’ red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grown on her head:
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music has a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Still, I’m not sure I’d use this in a valentine.