[
  {
    "title": "A Valentine",
    "author": "Lewis Carroll",
    "lines": [
      "Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see",
      "him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.",
      "",
      "And cannot pleasures, while they last,",
      "Be actual unless, when past,",
      "They leave us shuddering and aghast,",
      "With anguish smarting?",
      "And cannot friends be firm and fast,",
      "And yet bear parting?",
      "",
      "And must I then, at Friendship's call,",
      "Calmly resign the little all",
      "(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)",
      "I have of gladness,",
      "And lend my being to the thrall",
      "Of gloom and sadness?",
      "",
      "And think you that I should be dumb,",
      "And full DOLORUM OMNIUM,",
      "Excepting when YOU choose to come",
      "And share my dinner?",
      "At other times be sour and glum",
      "And daily thinner?",
      "",
      "Must he then only live to weep,",
      "Who'd prove his friendship true and deep",
      "By day a lonely shadow creep,",
      "At night-time languish,",
      "Oft raising in his broken sleep",
      "The moan of anguish?",
      "",
      "The lover, if for certain days",
      "His fair one be denied his gaze,",
      "Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,",
      "But, wiser wooer,",
      "He spends the time in writing lays,",
      "And posts them to her.",
      "",
      "And if the verse flow free and fast,",
      "Till even the poet is aghast,",
      "A touching Valentine at last",
      "The post shall carry,",
      "When thirteen days are gone and past",
      "Of February.",
      "",
      "Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,",
      "In desert waste or crowded street,",
      "Perhaps before this week shall fleet,",
      "Perhaps to-morrow.",
      "I trust to find YOUR heart the seat",
      "Of wasting sorrow."
    ],
    "linecount": "44"
  },
  {
    "title": "A Valentine",
    "author": "Edgar Allan Poe",
    "lines": [
      "For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,",
      "  Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,",
      "Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies",
      "  Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.",
      "Search narrowly the lines!--they hold a treasure",
      "  Divine--a talisman--an amulet",
      "That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure--",
      "  The words--the syllables! Do not forget",
      "The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!",
      "  And yet there is in this no Gordian knot",
      "Which one might not undo without a sabre,",
      "  If one could merely comprehend the plot.",
      "Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering",
      "  Eyes scintillating soul, there lie _perdus_",
      "Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing",
      "  Of poets by poets--as the name is a poet's, too.",
      "Its letters, although naturally lying",
      "  Like the knight Pinto--Mendez Ferdinando--",
      "Still form a synonym for Truth--Cease trying!",
      "  You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you _can_ do."
    ],
    "linecount": "20"
  }
]