Ere the morn the East has crimsoned, <br />When the stars are twinkling there, <br />(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and <br />Made him wonder what they were <br />When the forest-nymphs are beading <br />Fern and flower with silvery dew - <br />My infallible proceeding <br />Is to wake, and think of you. <br /> <br />When the hunter's ringing bugle <br />Sounds farewell to field and copse, <br />And I sit before my frugal <br />Meal of gravy-soup and chops: <br />When (as Gray remarks) 'the moping <br />Owl doth to the moon complain,' <br />And the hour suggests eloping - <br />Fly my thoughts to you again. <br /> <br />May my dreams be granted never? <br />Must I aye endure affliction <br />Rarely realised, if ever, <br />In our wildest works of fiction? <br />Madly Romeo loved his Juliet; <br />Copperfield began to pine <br />When he hadn't been to school yet - <br />But their loves were cold to mine. <br /> <br />Give me hope, the least, the dimmest, <br />Ere I drain the poisoned cup: <br />Tell me I may tell the chymist <br />Not to make that arsenic up! <br />Else, this heart shall soon cease throbbing; <br />And when, musing o'er my bones, <br />Travellers ask, 'Who killed Cock Robin?' <br />They'll be told, 'Miss Sarah J-s.'<br /><br />Charles Stuart Calverley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-suggested-by-the-fourteenth-of-february-i/
