Valentine's Day and The Song of Songs

It's been a cold few days, the sort of cold that chills you to the bone, but despite that, there seems to be a very definite change of season. Spring is in the air, and the winter's almost over, though I've no doubt there'll be a frosty sting in its tail. The nights are getting shorter by the day, and the snowdrops and crocuses are beginning to show. The birds in the garden are starting to get friskier - a couple of great tits have been flitting around all afternoon, and I think they may be eyeing up the nesting-box on the back wall, while a blackbird sat at the top of a neighbours' cherry tree singing into the twilight.
Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, today is Ash Wednesday, and in a couple of days time, it'll be Valentine's Day, when the birds are supposed to pair up, and rational human beings get all lovey-dovey and excessively romantic with each other.

Those without partners just get depressed, and think to themselves how quickly the time slips away.
We all need somebody to love, and we all like the idea of being in love and having a physical relationship with a like-minded person - something which the biblical author of the Song of Songs knew only too well.

Set me a seal upon thine heart, 
as a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death;
jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire, 
which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it:
if a man would give the substance of his house for love,
it would utterly be condemned.