Poem by Charles Stuart Calverley

Lines Suggested by the Fourteenth of February - II

Darkness succeeds to twilight:
  Through lattice and through skylight
The stars no doubt, if one looked out,
      Might be observed to shine:
  And sitting by the embers
  I elevate my members
On a stray chair, and then and there
      Commence a Valentine.

  Yea! by St. Valentinus,
  Emma shall not be minus
What all young ladies, whate'er their grade is,
      Expect to-day no doubt:
  Emma the fair, the stately -
  Whom I beheld so lately,
Smiling beneath the snow-white wreath
      Which told that she was "out."

  Wherefore fly to her, swallow,
  And mention that I'd "follow,"
And "pipe and trill," et cetera, till
      I died, had I but wings:
  Say the North's "true and tender,"
  The South an old offender;
And hint in fact, with your well-known tact,
      All kinds of pretty things.

  Say I grow hourly thinner,
  Simply abhor my dinner -
Tho' I do try and absorb some viand
      Each day, for form's sake merely:
  And ask her, when all's ended,
  And I am found extended,
With vest blood-spotted and cut carotid,
      To think on Her's sincerely.

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

Print

1315 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version