VALENTINE'S DAY.
Oh! love, love, love, love, love, love, love!
What plaguy work you make!
From New Year's day to New Year's day
No rest you seem to take.
And yet you're but a little chap:
To me it seems most odd,
That folks should truckle thus to thee,
Thou Semi-Demi-God!
The day of all the livelong year
That you most brightly shine,
Is February's fourteenth day,
Illustrious Valentine.
Oh! then what breaking of young hearts!
What fits! what swoons! what cries!
And sobs of ev'ry kind and sort,
And sighs of ev'ry size!
No day makes such a stir as this:
(Not even the king's natal:)
Of all the fêtes, O Valentine!
Thy fête is the most fatal.
All other feasts are sinking fast,
But yours shall ne'er decline:
And oh! among read letter days,
What day can match with thine?
All now to Love their homage pay:
From him that guides the plough,
To him that guides the state;—the king
Himself's a court-ier now.
Love leads poor mortals such a dance
O'er hill and over plain,
The world seems like one vast quadrille
The figure, Ladies' chain.
In fact, 'tis Nature's grand Court day,
When high and low you meet:
The noble with his am'rous train;
The beggar with his suite.
There's not a trade or mystery,
But love finds means to bind:
The very blacksmith at his forge
Feels hammer-ously inclined.
Jack Ketch himself from Cupid's noose
By no means feels secure.
The butcher—heretofore so hard—
Feels in his heart a skewer.
The miser (harder far than both)
Now opens with avidity
His chest—his heart, I meant to say:—
For Cupid, cuts Cupidity.
The beasts are just in the same plight;
The horse, the ass, the steer:
The lion's found his "own true love;"
The stag has got his deer.
The little mouse, tho' small he be,
Courts after his own fashion:
The very mite's obliged to own
That love's a mite-y passion.
The very birds are caught: the crow
In amorous despondence,
His carrion leaves, to carry on
A tender correspondence.
And while Miss Grace invites her beau
With her at eve to wander,
The goose, whose quill she gently wields,
Is gone to meet her gander.
Since birds and beasts don't die for love,
T'were sillier than a goose,
Because I can't tie Hymen's knot,
To dangle in a noose.
Fresh bonds I'll seek, tho' I should roam
From England to Owhyee:
And for my death (fixed for to-day)
Postpone it sine die.
| MARCH. |  | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Come, tell me what's March like? A bully, I trow, | |||
| Who runs up, and blinds you by giving a blow; | |||
| Or a saucy Drill Serjeant, with swaggering airs, | |||
| Who the rustic recruit by his blustering scares;— | |||
| Or a Serjeant-at-law, who so craftily tries, | |||
| In a tempest of words, to throw dust in your eyes. | |||
| D. | Great Events and Odd Matters. | Prognostifications. | |
| 1 | St. David's Day. Prince of Whales caught at the Nore, where he springs a leak. | ||
| 2 | Death of Boil-eau. Kitchen maids go into mourning. | commotions | |
| 3 | and | ||
| OPENING OF PARLIAMENT. | |||
| 4 | consternations | ||
| The tables of both Houses groan with Petitions from all classes of His Majesty's subjects. Among the most important will be found the prayer of the half-starved Hacks to be exported to Otaheite; the petition of the Dogs against the truck system; the appeal of the Cats to the King for an asylum, in Lap-land, from the suit of the Skinners' Company; the petition of the Ducks to be presented by Mr. Poulter, for the discontinuance of Bean Feasts, to be supported by Mr. Pease; the memorial of the Hogs against breakfast bacon, and offering to prove it all gammon; the humble prayer of the Whitebait of Blackwall to be excused attendance at the Cabinet Ministers' dinners; ditto from Mr. Place (it is supposed neither will be dispensed with); the memorial of the men of genius as to the foundation of a college for the cultivation of the Muses among the Happy-nine mountains, and the petition of the Royal Society of Beggars for leave to hold their court in the ruins of Rag-land Castle. | |||
| 5 | ♄ ♉ | ||
| 6 | to Great | ||
| 7 | Britain, | ||
| 8 | ♅ ☋ ♊ ☿ | ||
| 9 | than do | ||
| 10 | divers other | ||
| 11 | aspects | ||
| 12 | ♌ ♑ ♓ | ||
| 13 | denote | ||
| 14 | sundry | ||
| 15 | Isaac Walton died. | mishaps | |
| 16 |  | EPITAPH. | and |
| 17 | Rejoice, ye little fishes all! | mischances | |
| Ye tickle-bats and minnows! | |||
| 18 | A human pike without a sole, | ⚹ ☍ ♀ ♈ | |
| Has left this world of sinners. | |||
| 19 | Ye gentle gentils, grieve no more! | to Little | |
| Your pangs perhaps he feels; | |||
| 20 | For now a greedier pike, grim Death, | Britain; | |
| Has laid him by the heels. | |||
| 21 | and if | ||
| 22 | |||
| ♑ ☌ ♎ | |||
| 23 | Cannon-ization of Antwerp, 1832. | ||
| the lord of | |||
| 24 | Captain Parry among the Esquimaux. Great Seal stolen. | ||
| the Sixth | |||
| 25 |  | ||
| House, | |||
| 26 | |||
| 27 | Easter Monday. Epping Hunt. | ♊ ⚹ ♄ ♀ | |
| 28 |  | among | |
| 29 | the | ||
| 30 | constellations, | ||
| 31 | ☋ ♌ | ||
MARCH.—Tossing the Pancake.