———
Alas! sweet ——, how hard a task is mine
Thy behest to fulfill. The poet’s heart
Freezes with winter; and his lyric art,
Torpid and dull, no coronals can twine,
Even in honor of Saint Valentine!
Yet must the saint be honored; so I lay
A frozen dove upon his frozen shrine,
And ice-twigs pile for sacrificial pyre,
While driving snows obscure the short-lived day,