A VALENTINE
[Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.]
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 bear 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
DOLORUM OMNIUM,
Excepting when
YOU choose to come
And share my dinner?
At other times be
sour and glum
And daily thinner?
Must 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.
And 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
to-morrow.
I trust to find
YOUR heart the seat
Of wasting sorrow.
Lewis Carroll, 1860