DO AS HE DIDN'T

[Thoughts on a Theme]

St. Valentine, a Celibate,
Lifelong declined to procreate.
It's odd his name is on the date
When birds and bees - and mortals - mate!
The Saint eschewed the married state,
And thought it rude to contemplate
The joys of the connubial fate:
He trod a solitary gait.
What perils might have lain, innate,
In Valentine's unwedded state!
The wide world should congratulate
The Saint who didn't copulate,
For if we didn't integrate,
And no-one chose to consummate,
Creation would disintegrate:
Oblivion would be our fate!
So, lasses, lads, appreciate
That all the world's continued fate
Was chosen by a Celibate,
A Saint who never took a mate!
If Valentine had upped and wed,
Would we all be not here, or dead?
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VALENTINE MINI-ODE

[Precis version]

St. Valentine, Episcopus,
Lifelong foreswore the friskibus.
He never took a riskibus,
So lived - and died - Episcopus.
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ENCOURAGEMENT TO A LOVER

[Apologies to a Lover,
20th Century Version]

Why do you put up with me?
How do you endure me?
When you know well, of all my faults
You cannot hope to cure me?
Why do you endure me?

And why, for more than forty years,
Have I put up with you?
You irritate, exasperate,
And try me: yes, you do.
Yet, I put up with you.

Come, come! Let's not prevaricate:
The reasons you know fine!
We put up with each other
For the love that's yours and mine.
So, please, Love, be my Valentine!
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ST. VALENTINE'S TALE

[The onset of Spring ... ]

1. St. Valentine, a priestly chap
Sadly, lost his head:
The Romans cut it off, you see,
Which left the Bishop dead.
It seems most odd, a jest by God,
That this decapitation
Made Valentine the Patron Saint
Of mortal procreation.

2. The year two-seventy, it was,
When Bishop Val was shortened,
With all Eternity to spend
In thinking - what he oughtn't.
In mortal life, he'd had no wife:
His ways were solitary,
So up on High, he thought he'd try
To make all lovers merry.

3. He's seen fashion mirror passion
All through the Lovers' years,
(And farthingales and bustles
Very nearly brought him tears!)
But his feast shows how well he knows
The human urge for courting
Has never ceased: the human beast
Is always ripe for sporting.

4. St. Valentine has kept his fame
For near two thousand years.
He's supervised the mating game
From laughter through to tears.
But humankind should bear in mind
When frolicking in bed,
Just what became of Valentine -
The Saint who lost his head ...
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VALENTINE VERSE

[Nearly that time again!]

St. Valentine! The inspiration
Of Poets, through each generation!
From his decease to modern times
The poor chap's had some awful rhymes ...
Try these two lines - they make me wince -
(Though worse ones have been written since -)
"Hail, Bishop Valentine, whose day this is.
All the air is thy Diocese ... !"
We can do better far than those,
For instance, we can rhyme the rose,
And moon and noon and croon and tune,
And spoon and June and honeymoon ...
Right then, my friends: our turn is come
Let's verse the Saint until he's numb!
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