Then Christians rear’d the boy a shrine.
And youths invok’d Saint Valentine
To bless their annual passion;
And maidens still his name revere,
And, smiling, hail his day each year—
A day to village lovers dear,
Though saints are out of fashion.
A. S.
Monthly Magazine.
Another is pleased to treat the prevailing topic of the day as one of those “whims and oddities,” which exceedingly amuse the reading world, and make e’en sighing lovers smile.
SONG
For the 14th of February.
By a General Lover.
“Mille gravem telis exhaustâ pene pharetrâ.”
Apollo has peep’d through the shutter,
And waken’d the witty and fair;
The boarding-school belle’s in a flutter,
The twopenny post’s in despair:
The breath of the morning is flinging
A magic on blossom, on spray;
And cockneys and sparrows are singing
In chorus on Valentine’s Day.
Away with ye, dreams of disaster,
Away with ye, visions of law,
Of cases I never shall master,
Of pleadings I never shall draw:
Away with ye, parchments and papers.
Red tapes, unread volumes, away;
It gives a fond lover the vapours
To see you on Valentine’s Day.
I’ll sit in my nightcap, like Hayley,
I’ll sit with my arms crost, like Spain,
Till joys, which are vanishing daily,
Come back in their lustre again:
Oh, shall I look over the waters,
Or shall I look over the way,
For the brightest and best of Earth’s daughters,
To rhyme to on Valentine’s Day?