Love Song

(Maligne Lake, at Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada,
by Lawren Harris, 1885-1970, Canadian artist)

The pathetic fallacy is a form of personification. Writers ascribe human feelings and thoughts to flora and fauna and all manner of inanimate things. Hence the name: “pathetic” from the Greek pathos or feeling, and “fallacy” for the mistaken notion that this is truly possible.

This rhetorical device is most useful to the poets, especially in declarations of love. It greatly expands the potential support they can enlist to their side. Any thing at all can now join the chorus.

LOVE SONG

Beloved,
I have to adore the earth:

The wind must have heard
your voice once.
It echoes and sings like you.

The soil must have tasted
you once.
It is laden with your scent.

The trees honor you
in gold
and blush when you pass.

I know why the north country
is frozen.
It has been trying to preserve
your memory.

I know why the desert
burns with fever.
It has wept too long without you.

On hands and knees,
the ocean begs up the beach,
and falls at your feet.

I have to adore
the mirror of the earth.
You have taught her well
how to be beautiful.

~ Henry Dumas (1934-1968), American poet and writer of novels and short stories