A frog took up residence in our gutter this spring. How he managed to get there remains a mystery, along with the question of how he supplied himself with food and drink.

The fact is that every evening, approximately sundown, he sent forth his mating croak. His choice of venues was fortunate: the metal gutter acted as an amplifier. Every lady frog in the valley had to hear his song. In the competition for a mate, he’d hit upon an original attention-getting device.

I’m sure that in frog terms he was spouting poetry worthy of Cyrano de Bergerac in a voice like Pavarotti’s. There must have been thousands of frog beauties who were thrilled by his summons, numberless Juliets swooning over a single Romeo. But how were they to reach him, trapped as he was on the balcony, where the maiden ought to be? Like many a poet, he sang in tragic isolation. In the words of Yeats, “Only an aching heart conceives a changeless work of art.”

Sometime late in June, the frog stopped singing. Starved, I suspect, in more ways than one.

Speaking about living in the gutter, a pair of chirping sparrows and a king bird couple also made their nests in that unlikely spot. It seemed a poor choice of abode, exposed to the elements, lacking in the ambiance of a tree or shrub. How their nests survived our spring downpours I don’t know.

Somehow they fared better than the frog. Their love was literally born on wings “swift as contemplation.” Both nests prospered and rewarded their builders with a brood. No barrier keeps love birds apart.

How mighty is the force that draws creatures together in the service of love and propagation. What, in the perspective of my gutter dwellers, are the prospects of our own kind? Can we learn anything from the frog and the birds?

The arguments for despair are many. In a recently published polemic, “Against Love,” Laura Kipnis debunks marriage as more labor than love. It’s “mandatory barracks” and “denture adhesive” designed to hold things in place.

In the realm of sexual identity, confusion reigns. Men are advised to get in touch with their feminine side and visa versa. Both sexes have lost a sure sense of their attractive attributes. Women have concluded that the homely navel is their most alluring asset. Men parade around in tank tops that show off their armpits and paunches and wonder why no one wants to cuddle up.

And who’d want to have children when the chances are they’ll grow up with rings in their noses, their bodies covered with garish tattoos?

This sad state of affairs ought to promote abstinence, celibacy, misogyny and a race of spinsters and bachelors. Yet in spite of the campaign to blur the differences between male and female, men and women persist in seeing one another not just as members of the “opposite” sex, but also as objects of desire. And in spite of the 50 percent failure rate of marriages, they still flock to the altar with a gusto bordering on madness.

The classified ads are filled with brazen, desperate pitches. “Why should you get to know me?” asks one. “I’m one of the best whistlers you’ll ever meet. I’m definitely the best yodeler.” Another proclaims, “The truth is sexy; the naked/scantily clad truth is sexier.”

Online dating, once scorned as “Losers.com,” is taking the place of matchmakers and singles bars, according to an article I read. Millions spend hundreds of millions using the Web to find a spouse and many claim to have scored, though it’s axiomatic that everyone tells lies about their height and age.

Still, true love seems as elusive as ever. Last May, I was tarpon fishing in Florida when the peace was shattered by an armada of 50-foot-long neon-colored boats powered by engines that belonged on airplanes. Each one was captained by an elderly, overweight man, surrounded a crew of young goddesses attired in thongs — “pit lizards,” they’re called. What was it that attracted those nubile beauties to those fat old men? Was it the prospect of true love?

The real threat to romance and the survival of our species may be virtual sex. The New York Times recently proclaimed the wonders of halographic, interactive pornography. New technology lets the viewer function as director of the action, choosing from a menu of positions, camera angles and embellishments. It promises Kama Sutra variations without the hassles of a flesh and blood partner … better than the real thing?

The animal kingdom’s approach to sex seems more wholesome, sensible and dignified than our own. Wouldn’t we be better off liberated from the obligation to think about sex every 15 seconds, with a short annual season of mating frenzy and the remainder of the year spent in peaceful indolence, with nothing to do but to browse, graze, nibble and doze?

Think of the heartache Yeats would have been spared in his fruitless pursuit of Maud Gonne if the two of them had been cuttlefish or nematoads. Nothing remains of his hopeless love for her — except the poetry, of course.

Never forget the poetry. What would life be without it? It saddens me to think that this prosaic report is all that remains of my gutter frog’s Dionysian dithyrambs. Froggy, I did the best I could.