FOR ALL WHO EVER SENT LACE VALENTINES
The little-boy lover
And little-girl lover
Met the first time
At the house of a friend.
And great the respect
Of the little-boy lover.
The awe and the fear of her
Stayed to the end.
The little girl chattered
Incessantly chattered,
Hardly would look
When he tried to be nice.
But deeply she trembled
The little-girl lover,
Eaten with flame
While she tried to be ice.
The lion of loving
The terrible lion
Woke in the two
Long before they could wed.
The world said: “Child hearts
You must keep till the summer.
It is not allowed
That your hearts should be red.”
If only a wizard
A kindly grey wizard
Had built them a house
In a cave underground.
With an emerald door,
And honey to eat!
But it seemed that no wizard
Was waiting around.
Oh children with fancies,
The rarest of notions,
The rarest of passions
And hopes here below!
Many a child,
His young heart too timid
Has fled from his princess
No other to know.
I have seen them with faces
Like books out of Heaven,
With messages there
The harsh world should read,
The lions and roses and lilies of love,
Its tender, mystic, tyrannical need.
Were I god of the village
My servants should mate them.
Were I priest of the church
I would set them apart.
If the wide state were mine
It should live for such darlings,
And hedge with all shelter
The child-wedded heart.