Victorian Valentine Card with Children & Heart - Vintage Love Card

The poem crawling down the left side reads 'Don't let a rival win, I pray / But listen what I have to say / I loved you first / my heart is thine / Therefore be my true Valentine'—which sounds less like a valentine and more like a cease-and-desist letter filed by a six-year-old with serious intellectual property claims over someone's heart. Two Victorian-era children stand side by side in front of an oversized red heart wreathed in delicate white flowers, the boy in a blue sailor suit with his hands clasped behind his back like a tiny corporate negotiator, the girl in a white dress with a blue bow doing her best 'playing it cool' impression. The whole composition, children gesturing toward a giant heart under flowering branches while one child aggressively establishes legal precedence of affection, is either the most wholesome thing ever printed or early evidence that possessive attachment styles start younger than we thought.