Classic Poem

What knowing folk these moderns are!
They tell, by every spectrum-bar,
The very stuff that makes the star.

And yet I have my doubts if Love,
That swears by yonder star above,
Cares sixpence what it's fashioned of.

Some other sages foolish-wise
Have stripped from Santa his disguise
And tell us he is naught but lies.

And others challenge Mother Goose,
And call her facts and morals loose,
And want her put to better use.

They say that Mary had no lamb,
That 'twas a woolen-mill reclame
Invented by your Uncle Sam.

Because they cannot find the strand
With Friday's footprint in the sand
They say there was no Crusoe-land.

All these and more are hard to bear;
But now we have a worse affair
Of which the Church may well beware.

Some brazen British bishops say
" St. Valentine has had his day;
No longer at his shrine shall pray

These trivial lovers who would mar
A martyr's fame. This goes too far!
We'll drop him from the calendar. "

A Saint unhaloed! Who shall dare
To tell the news to Rome? And where
Shall lovers find such shrine for prayer?

Ah! we'll build altars new, divine,
To worship old Saint Valentine,
Thou in my heart and I in thine.