Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1902 — Curious Old Tradition. [ARTICLE]

Curious Old Tradition.

There is a curious old tradition that t&C birds select their mates on St. Valentina’! day, which is more interesting in the aV tention accorded it than in itself. Shat speare in his “Midsummer Night’g Dream,” makes Theseus say when hiC suddenly stumbles upon the quartet t£ lovers asleep in the wood: St. Valentine is past! Begin these wood-birds but to couple notrl One of Chaucer’s stanzas pictures Ngr ture reminding the “foules” of her inexorable laws: Ye know well how, on St. Valentine’s dty. By my statute and through my governabco, Ye do choose your mates. Dr. Donne also has indited an ods ts St. Valentine: Hail Bishop Valentine! All the air Is thy. diocese, And all the chirping choristers And other birds are thy parishioners. Thou marryest every year The lyric lark and grave whispering dove. The sparrow that neglects her life for level The household bird and his red stomacher. Thou rnnk'st the blackbird speed as soon As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon. St. Valentine, as a hierophant of the heart, has no more devoted disciple than our ancestors. The very children in the country towns of England decorate themselves with holly wreaths and true lovers’ knots and move in processions, from house to houses singing: • Good-morrow to yon, Valentine; Curl your locks as I do mine— Two before and two behind— Good-morrow to you, Valentine.