February is Love month, and my music stand shows it.  This month’s healing harp set is packed full of love songs.  Celtic Love Songs, Jazz Love Songs, Contemporary Love Songs, Folk Love Songs.

Love, Love, Love.

This is one of my favorite months, because it includes a lot of singing, a lot of touching melodies, and many familiar tunes which stir warm memories in the people for whom I play.

It’s also one of the months when I bring a ridiculous number of wonderful books with me.

One of the sweetest melodies I play in February is an old Irish love song written by Thomas Moore called “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”  The lyrics are so timeless:

I.

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,

Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,

Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,

Like fairy-gifts, fading away!

Thou wouldst still be ador’d as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will;

And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still!

II.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,

And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,

That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,

To which time will but make thee more dear!

Oh! the heart, that has truly lov’d, never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close;

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,

The same look which she turn’d when he rose!