Oh! love, love, love, love, love, love, love! What plaguy work you make! From New Year's day to New Year's day No rest you seem to take.
And yet you're but a little chap: To me it seems most odd, That folks should truckle thus to thee, Thou Semi-Demi-God!
The day of all the livelong year That you most brightly shine, Is February's fourteenth day, Illustrious Valentine.
Oh! then what breaking of young hearts! What fits! what swoons! what cries! And sobs of ev'ry kind and sort, And _sighs_ of ev'ry _size_!
No day makes such a stir as this: (Not even the king's natal:) Of all the fêtes, O Valentine! Thy _fête_ is the most _fatal_.
All other _feasts_ are sinking _fast_, But yours shall ne'er decline: And oh! among _read letter_ days, What day can match with thine?
All now to Love their homage pay: From him that guides the plough, To him that guides the state;—the king Himself's a _court-ier_ now.
Love leads poor mortals such a dance O'er hill and over plain, The world seems like one vast quadrille The figure, _Ladies' chain_.
In fact, 'tis Nature's grand _Court_ day, When high and low you meet: The noble with his am'rous _train_; The beggar with his _suite_.
There's not a trade or mystery, But love finds means to bind: The very blacksmith at his forge Feels _hammer-ously_ inclined.
Jack Ketch himself from Cupid's noose By no means feels secure. The butcher—heretofore so hard— Feels in his heart a skewer.
The miser (harder far than both) Now opens with avidity His chest—his heart, I meant to say:— For _Cupid_, cuts _Cupidity_.
The beasts are just in the same plight; The horse, the ass, the steer: The lion's found his "own true love;" The stag has got his _deer_.
The little mouse, tho' small he be, Courts after his own fashion: The very _mite's_ obliged to own That love's a _mite-y_ passion.
The very birds are caught: the crow In amorous despondence, His carrion leaves, to _carry on_ A tender correspondence.
And while Miss Grace invites her beau With her at eve to wander, The goose, whose quill she gently wields, Is gone to meet her gander.
Since birds and beasts don't die for love, T'were sillier than a goose, Because I can't tie Hymen's _knot_, To dangle in a _noose_.
Fresh bonds I'll seek, tho' I should roam From England to Owhyee: And for my death (fixed for to-day) Postpone it _sine die_.