Valentine carroll cem
And cannot pleasures, while they last, be actual, unless, when past, they leave us shuddering and aghast, with anguish smarting? And cannot friends be firm and fast, and yet bare parting? And must I then, at friendship's call, calmly resign the little all, trifling I grant it is and small, I have of gladness and lend my being to the thrall of gloom and sadness?
And think you that I should be dumb and full delorum omnium, accepting when you choose to come and share my dinner, at other times be sour and glum and daily thinner? Would 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. 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 tomorrow, I trust to find your heart the seat of wasting
sorrow. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
