Now that each feather'd chorister doth sing The glad approaches of the welcome Spring: Now Ph[oe]bus darts forth his more early beam And dips it later in the curled stream, I should to custom prove a retrograde Did I still dote upon my sullen shade. Oft have the seasons finish'd and begun; Days into months, those into years have run, Since my cross stars and inauspicious fate Doom'd me to linger here without my mate 10 Whose loss ere since befrosting my desire, Left me an Altar without gift or fire. I therefore could have wish'd for your own sake That Fortune had design'd a nobler stake For you to draw, than one whose fading day Like to a dedicated taper lay Within a tomb, and long burnt out in vain, Since nothing there saw better by the flame. Yet since you like your chance, I must not try To mar it through my incapacity. 20 I here make title to it, and proclaim How much you honour me to wear my name; Who can no form of gratitude devise, But offer up myself your sacrifice. Hail, then, my worthy lot! and may each morn Successive springs of joy to you be born: May your content ne'er wane until my heart Grown bankrupt, wants good wishes to impart. Henceforth I need not make the dust my shrine, Nor search the grave for my lost Valentine. 30 [_St. Valentine's Day._] I suppose, though I do not remember an instance, that in the good days before the prettiest of English customs succumbed--partly to the growth of Vulgarity and partly to the competition of the much less interesting Christmas Card--some one, or more than one, must have made a collection of _literary_ Valentines. In that case this should have figured. It has a good deal of 'Henry King, his mark'--good taste, freedom from mawkishness, melody, and enough poetical essence to save it from the merely mediocre. The coincidence of l. 24 with the more passionate close of 'Tell me no more' should not escape notice.--I have not altered '_ere_ since' to '_e'er_ since' in text, because the emendation, though almost, is not quite certain.] _To his unconstant Friend._