Poem by Charles Stuart Calverley

Lines Suggested by the Fourteenth of February - I

Ere the morn the East has crimsoned,
  When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and
  Made him wonder what they were
When the forest-nymphs are beading
  Fern and flower with silvery dew -
My infallible proceeding
  Is to wake, and think of you.

When the hunter's ringing bugle
  Sounds farewell to field and copse,
And I sit before my frugal
  Meal of gravy-soup and chops:
When (as Gray remarks) "the moping
  Owl doth to the moon complain,"
And the hour suggests eloping -
  Fly my thoughts to you again.

May my dreams be granted never?
  Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realised, if ever,
  In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
  Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn't been to school yet -
  But their loves were cold to mine.

Give me hope, the least, the dimmest,
  Ere I drain the poisoned cup:
Tell me I may tell the chymist
  Not to make that arsenic up!
Else, this heart shall soon cease throbbing;
  And when, musing o'er my bones,
Travellers ask, "Who killed Cock Robin?"
They'll be told, "Miss Sarah J-s."

1. Dover to Munich
2. Striking
3. The Cock and the Bull
4. Gemini and Virgo
5. “Hic Vir, Hic Est”

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