A Valentine: (Poem 1)
As blithe a little maid as you.
And, though her hair is snowy white,
Her eyes still have their maiden blue,
And on her cheeks, as fair as thine,
Methinks a girlish blush would glow
If she recalled the valentine
She got, ah! many years ago.
A valorous youth loved gran'ma then,
And wooed her in that auld lang syne;
And first he told his secret when
He sent the maid that valentine.
No perfumed page nor sheet of gold
Was that first hint of love he sent,
But with the secret gran'pa told—
"I love you"—gran'ma was content.
Go, ask your gran'ma, if you will,
If—though her head be bowed and gray—
If—though her feeble pulse be chill—
True love abideth not for aye;
By that quaint portrait on the wall,
That smiles upon her from above,
Methinks your gran'ma can recall
The sweet divinity of love.
Dear Elsie, here's no page of gold—
No sheet embossed with cunning art—
But here's a solemn pledge of old:
"I love you, love, with all my heart."
And if in what I send you here
You read not all of love expressed,
Go—go to gran'ma, Elsie dear,
And she will tell you all the rest!
Known for his lyrical and long-form verse, Percy Bysshe Shelley was a prominent English Romantic poet and was one of the most highly regarded and influential poets of the 19th century. Born on August 4, 1792—the year of the Terror in France—Percy Bysshe Shelley (the “Bysshe” from his grandfather, a peer of the realm) was the son of Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley. As the elder son among one brother, John, and four sisters, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret, and Hellen, Percy stood in line not only to inherit his grandfather’s considerable estate but also to sit in Parliament one day. In his position as oldest male child, young Percy was beloved and admired by his sisters, his parents, and even the servants in his early reign as young lord of Field Place, the family home near Horsham, Sussex. Playful and imaginative, he devised games to play with his sisters and told ghost stories to an enrapt and willing-to-be-thrilled audience.