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.