Must, bid the Morn awake! Sad Winter now declines, Each bird doth choose a mate; This day's Saint Valentine's. For that good bishop's sake Get up and let us see What beauty it shall be That Fortune us assigns.

These lines are from Michael Drayton’s pastoral poem celebrating St Valentine’s Day, in which a speaker urges a beloved to rise at dawn because winter is ending and nature is turning toward pairing and courtship. Drayton (1563–1631), a prolific Elizabethan/Jacobean poet, often wrote in genres that blended classical pastoral with contemporary English seasonal and festive customs. The poem reflects an early modern English association of 14 February with the mating of birds and with human matchmaking—an idea popularized in late medieval and Renaissance literature and carried into lyric traditions of Valentine “choosing” and fortune in love.

The speaker frames Valentine’s Day as a moment when the natural world and human desire align: winter “declines,” morning must be awakened, and birds select mates. Against this seasonal backdrop, the lovers should rise to witness what “beauty” Fortune assigns—suggesting both the chance element of romantic pairing and the ritualized social practice of choosing a Valentine. The invocation of “that good bishop” (St Valentine) lends a mock-solemn, quasi-religious sanction to erotic and playful courtship. Overall, the lyric turns a calendar feast into a dawn scene of renewal, urging action (get up) and openness to love’s providence or luck.