O who can tell the heart’s emotion?
Who can well the power reveal?
The painful, pleasing, soft commotion,
The hopes, the fears which lovers feel?
How vainly I, whose bosom fraught
With love, unchanging love, to thee,
Can show its truth, or raise a thought
That’s equal to its power in me!
What! though thou hadst some time ago
A Valentine—what then?
The dame of Ephesus, you know,
Resolv’d to wed again.
The time of mourning hath expir’d,
All sorrow then decline,
And let another be admir’d—
Another Valentine.
For three long months I’ve strove to hide
What now I can no longer;
Though silent grief has made me weak,
My love, I find, is stronger.
So, if your mind is like your form,
You cruel, sure, can’t he,
But deign to love a wretched man,
Who lives alone for thee.
To please the ladies I do strive,
For I’m the happiest man alive,
When pleasure they receive.
I therefore send this Valentine,
And hope my verses, though not fine,
Will satisfaction give.
I do not boast the knack of rhyme,
Nor is my poetry sublime,
But true is every line:
I love thee—’tis the honest truth—
And, by the honour of a youth,
I’ll be thy Valentine.
