And think you that I should be étédumb, And full _dolorum omnium_, Excepting when you choose to come And share my dinner? At other times be sour and glum And daily thinner?
Must he then only live to weep, Who’d prove his friendship true and deep? By day a lonely shadow creep, At night-time languish, Oft raising in his broken sleep The moan of anguish.
The lover, if for certain days His fair one be denied his gaze, Sinks not in grief and wild amaze, But, wiser wooer He spends the time in writing lays, And posts them to her.
And if the verse flow free and fast, Till even the poet is aghast, A touching Valentine at last The post shall carry, When thirteen days are gone and past Of February.
Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet, In desert waste or crowded street, Perhaps before this week shall fleet, Perhaps to-morrow, I trust to find your heart the seat Of wasting sorrow. _Lewis Carroll._
SWEETHEART, name the day for me When we two shall wedded be. Make it ere another moon, While the meadows are in tune, And the trees are blossoming, And the robins mate and sing. Whisper, love, and name a day In this merry month of May.
No, no, no, You shall not escape me so! Love will not forever wait; Roses fade when gathered late.
Fie, for shame, Sir Malcontent! How can time be better spent Than in wooing? I would wed When the clover blossoms red, When the air is full of bliss, And the sunshine like a kiss. If you’re good I’ll grant a boon: You shall have me, sir, in June.
Nay, nay, nay, Girls for once should have their way! If you love me, wait till June: Rosebuds wither, picked too soon. _Edmund Clarence Stedman._
WELL, Helen, quite two years have flown Since that enchanted, dreamy night, When you and I were left alone, And wondered whether they were right Who said that each the other loved; And thus debating, yes and no, And half in earnest, as it proved, We bargained to pretend ’twas so.
Two sceptic children of the world, Each with a heart engraven o’er With broken love-knots, quaintly curled, Of hot flirtations held before; Yet, somehow, either seemed to find, This time, a something more akin To that young, natural love,—the kind Which comes but once, and breaks us in.
What sweetly stolen hours we knew, And frolics perilous as gay! Though lit in sport, Love’s taper grew More bright and burning day by day. We knew each heart was only lent, The other’s ancient scars to heal: The very thought a pathos blent With all the mirth we tried to feel.