Editing Valentine's Day (section)

===Valentine poetry===
The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th-century [[Rondeau (poetry)|rondeau]] written by [[Charles, Duke of Orléans]] to his wife, which commences.
{{blockquote|"{{lang|frm|Je suis desja d'amour tanné<br />
Ma tres doulce Valentinée...|italics=no}}"|Charles d'Orléans|Rondeau VI, lines 1–2<ref>''[[:wikisource:Translation:A Farewell to Love]]'' in [[wikisource]]</ref>}} At the time, the duke was being held in the [[Tower of London]] following his capture at the [[Battle of Agincourt]], 1415.<ref>[http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day History Channel] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022134903/http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day |date=October 22, 2016 }}, historychannel.com.</ref>

The earliest surviving valentines in English appear to be those in the ''[[Paston Letters]]'', written in 1477 by [[Margery Brews]] to her future husband John Paston "my right well-beloved Valentine".<ref>Davis, Norman. ''The Paston Letters: A Selection in Modern Spelling''. Oxford University Press, 1983 pp. 233–5.</ref>

Saint Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Hamlet]]'' (1600–1601):
{{blockquote|"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,<br />All in the morning betime,<br />And I a maid at your window,<br />To be your Valentine.<br />Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,<br />And dupp'd the chamber-door;<br />Let in the maid, that out a maid<br />Never departed more."|William Shakespeare|''Hamlet'', Act IV, Scene 5}}

[[File:John Donne BBC News.jpg|thumb|Noted poet [[John Donne]], {{c.}} 1595.]]
[[John Donne]] used the legend of the marriage of the birds as the starting point for his [[epithalamion]] celebrating the marriage of [[Elizabeth of Bohemia|Elizabeth]], daughter of [[James I of England]], and [[Frederick V, Elector Palatine]], on Valentine's Day:

{{blockquote|"Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is<br />
All the Ayre is thy Diocese<br />
And all the chirping Queristers<br />
And other birds ar thy parishioners<br />
Thou marryest every yeare<br />
The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue,<br />
The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue,<br />
The houshold bird with the redd stomacher<br />
Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone,<br />
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon<br />
The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd<br />
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.<br />
This day more cheerfully than ever shine<br />
This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine."|John Donne|''Epithalamion Vpon Frederick Count Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth marryed on St. Valentines day''}}

The verse "[[Roses Are Red|Roses are red]]" echoes conventions traceable as far back as [[Edmund Spenser]]'s epic ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (1590):

<blockquote>"She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,<br />
And all the sweetest {{sic|flowres}}, that in the forrest grew."<ref>Spenser, ''The Faery Queene'' iii, Canto 6, Stanza 6: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/fq/fq32.htm on-line text] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304061514/http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/fq/fq32.htm |date=March 4, 2016 }}</ref></blockquote>

The modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in ''[[Gammer Gurton's Garland]]'' (1784), a collection of English nursery rhymes published in London by [[Joseph Johnson (publisher)|Joseph Johnson]]:

<blockquote>"The rose is red, the violet's blue,<br />
The honey's sweet, and so are you.<br />
Thou art my love and I am thine;<br />
I drew thee to my Valentine:<br />
The lot was cast and then I drew,<br />
And Fortune said it shou'd be you."<ref>''Gammer Gurton's Garland'' (London, 1784) in I. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd ed., 1997), p. 375.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XtAqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22I+drew+thee+to+my+Valentine%22&pg=PA14 ''Gammer Gurton's Garland''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324141821/https://books.google.com/books?id=XtAqAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22I+drew+thee+to+my+Valentine%22&pg=PA14 |date=March 24, 2023 }}, original 1810 version. Also [https://archive.org/stream/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala_djvu.txt 1810 version reprinted in 1866] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410212732/https://archive.org/stream/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala_djvu.txt |date=April 10, 2016 }} that uses more modern grammar like "should" instead of "shou'd".</ref></blockquote>