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Being Married on St. Valentine’s Day
I. HAIL Bishop Valentine, whose day this is; | |
| All the air is thy diocese, | |
| And all the chirping choristers | |
| And other birds are thy parishioners; | |
| Thou marriest every year | 5 |
| The lyric lark, and the grave whispering dove, | |
| The sparrow that neglects his life for love, | |
| The household bird with the red stomacher; | |
| Thou makest the blackbird speed as soon, | |
| As doth the goldfinch, or the halcyon; | 10 |
| The husband cock looks out, and straight is sped, | |
| And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. | |
| This day more cheerfully than ever shine; | |
| This day, which might inflame thyself, old Valentine. | |
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II. Till now, thou warm’d’st with multiplying loves | 15 |
| Two larks, two sparrows, or two doves; | |
| All that is nothing unto this; | |
| For thou this day couplest two phœnixes; | |
| Thou makst a taper see | |
| What the sun never saw, and what the ark | 20 |
| —Which was of fowls 1 and beasts the cage and park— | |
| Did not contain, one bed contains, through thee; | |
| Two phœnixes, whose joined breasts | |
| Are unto one another mutual nests, | |
| Where motion kindles such fires as shall give | 25 |
| Young phœnixes, and yet the old shall live; | |
| Whose love and courage never shall decline, | |
| But make the whole year through, thy day, O Valentine. | |
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III. Up then, fair phœnix bride, frustrate the sun; | |
| Thyself from thine affection | 30 |
| Takest warmth enough, and from thine eye | |
| All lesser birds will take their jollity. | |
| Up, up, fair bride, and call | |
| Thy stars from out their several boxes, take | |
| Thy rubies, pearls, and diamonds forth, and make | 35 |
| Thyself a constellation of them all; | |
| And by their blazing signify | |
| That a great princess falls, but doth not die. | |
| Be thou a new star, that to us portends | |
| Ends of much wonder; and be thou those ends. | 40 |
| Since thou dost this day in new glory shine, | |
| May all men date records from this day, 2 Valentine. | |
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IV. Come forth, come forth, and as one glorious flame | |
| Meeting another grows the same, | |
| So meet thy Frederick, and so | 45 |
| To an inseparable union go, | |
| Since separation | |
| Falls not on such things as are infinite, | |
| Nor things, which are but one, can disunite. | |
| You’re twice inseparable, great, and one; | 50 |
| Go then to where the bishop stays, | |
| To make you one, his way, which divers ways | |
| Must be effected; and when all is past, | |
| And that you’re one, by hearts and hands made fast, | |
| You two have one way left, yourselves to entwine, | 55 |
| Besides this bishop’s knot, of Bishop Valentine. 3 | |
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V. But O, what ails the sun, that here he stays, | |
| Longer to-day than other days? | |
| Stays he new light from these to get? | |
| And finding here such stars, 4 is loth to set? | 60 |
| And why do you two walk, | |
| So slowly paced in this procession? | |
| Is all your care but to be look’d upon, | |
| And be to others spectacle and talk? | |
| The feast with gluttonous delays | 65 |
| Is eaten, and too long their meat they praise; | |
| The masquers come late, and I think, will stay, | |
| Like fairies, till the cock crow them away. | |
| Alas! did not antiquity assign | |
| A night as well as day, to thee, old Valentine? 5 | 70 |
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VI. They did, and night is come; and yet we see | |
| Formalities retarding thee. | |
| What mean these ladies, which—as though | |
| They were to take a clock in pieces—go | |
| So nicely about the bride? | 75 |
| A bride, before a “Good-night” could be said, | |
| Should vanish from her clothes into her bed, | |
| As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied. | |
| But now she’s laid; what though she be? | |
| Yet there are more delays, for where is he? | 80 |
| He comes and passeth 6 through sphere after sphere; | |
| First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere. | |
| Let not this day, then, but this night be thine; | |
| Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine. | |
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VII. Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; 7 | 85 |
| She gives the best light to his sphere; | |
| Or each is both, and all, and so | |
| They unto one another nothing owe; | |
| And yet they do, but are | |
| So just and rich in that coin which they pay, | 90 |
| That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; | |
| Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. | |
| They quickly pay their debt, and then | |
| Take no acquittances, 8 but pay again; | |
| They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall | 95 |
| No such 9 occasion to be liberal. | |
| More truth, more courage in these two do shine, | |
| Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine. | |
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VIII. And by this act of these two phœnixes | |
| Nature again restorèd is; | 100 |
| For since these two are two no more, | |
| There’s but one phœnix still, as was before. | |
| Rest now at last, and we— | |
| As satyrs watch the sun’s uprise—will stay | |
| Waiting when your eyes opened let out day, | 105 |
| Only desired because your face we see. | |
| Others near you shall whispering speak, | |
| And wagers lay, at which side day will break, | |
| And win by observing, then, whose hand it is | |
| That opens first a curtain, hers or his: | 110 |
| This will be tried to-morrow after nine, | |
| Till which hour, we thy day enlarge, O Valentine. | |
