On St. Valentine’s Day
“Forbear, ye clouds, forbear a while,
And let the mournful Phoebus smile,
Here you forgot that on this day,
’Tis nature’s custom to be gay,
That all the birds in concert sing,
To hail th’ approach of smiling spring
And fill, alternate fill, the grove,
With songs of welcome, lays of love.
To day, to day then wherefore pour,
Upon this Earth this dreadful shower,
Oh wherefore, thus unkind, deny,
Your parent orb to grace the sky.”
I spoke, and thus the clouds replied,
“We do not seek his face to hide
But an unlooked for traveller here,
Disturbs the order of the sphere,
So swiftly thro’ the sky he rides,
That if no god his fury guides,
Dread, lest upon your heads are hurled
The ruins of another world.”
NEPHEOS