{
 "id": "john-henry-newman/valentine-to-a-little-girl",
 "title": "Valentine to a Little Girl",
 "ordinal": "CLXIII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Henry Newman",
 "poet_slug": "john-henry-newman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Verses on Various Occasions",
 "book_slug": "verses-on-various-occasions",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 163,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Verses on Various Occasions (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/a600744000newmuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-henry-newman_verses-on-various-occasions",
  "file": "verses-on-various-occasions.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009038168",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48927",
   "https://archive.org/details/dreamofgerontius01newmuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 34,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Little maiden, dost thou pine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a faithful Valentine?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Art thou scanning timidly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every face that meets thine eye?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Art thou fancying there may be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fairer face than thou dost see?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little maiden, scholar mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wouldst thou have a Valentine?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Go and ask, my little child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ask the Mother undefiled:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ask, for she will draw thee near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And will whisper in thine ear:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Valentine! the name is good;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For it comes of lineage high,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a famous family:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And it tells of gentle blood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Noble blood⁠—and nobler still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For its owner freely pour’d",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Every drop there was to spill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the quarrel of his Lord.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Valentine! I know the name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many martyrs bear the same;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they stand in glittering ring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Round their warrior God and King⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who before and for them bled⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With their robes of ruby red,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And their swords of cherub flame.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes! there is a plenty there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knights without reproach or fear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such St. Denys, such St. George,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Martin, Maurice, Theodore,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a hundred thousand more;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Guerdon gain’d and warfare o’er,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By that sea without a surge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And beneath the eternal sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the beatific Sun,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Jerusalem above,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Valentine is every one;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Choose from out that company",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom to serve, and whom to love.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}