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. The Cock and the Bull
3. Striking
4. Lines Suggested by the Fourteenth of February - I
5. “Hic Vir, Hic Est”

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