Dirge of the Lone Woman

AS WE entered by that door
We saw the lights a-flame —
A-flame on your bier,
On the bier of you
Who had loved many a one,
Loved many a one!

Then I said to your love,
To her, your latest love,
" There's his last room,
His final roof-tree
Who has lived in many a one,
In many a one.

" A tree never more
Grows to shield him
From the bitter cold and rain,
From the blighting light of love
Which ends many a one —
Ends many a one.

" There's his last tree;

Rain

As the rain falls
so does
your love

bathe every
open
object of the world—
In houses
the priceless dry
rooms
of illicit love
where we live
hear the wash of the
rain—

There
paintings
and fine
metalware
woven stuffs—
all the whorishness
of our
delight
sees
from its window

the spring wash
of your love
the falling
rain—

Johnny's the Lad I Love

As I roved out on a May morning,
Being in the youthful spring,
I leaned my back close to the garden wall,
To hear the small birds sing.

And to hear two lovers talk, my dear,
To know what they would say,
That I might know a little of her mind
Before I would go away.

" Come sit you down, my heart, " he says,
" All on this pleasant green,
It's full three-quarters of a year and more
Since together you and I have been. "

" I will not sit on the grass, " she said,
" Now nor any other time,

Epigram

As honey in wine / wine, honey
Alexis in Cleobulus
Cleobulus in Alexis
sweet-haired & lovely each
as he with whom the other
mingles . . . product
of such two entwined
potent
as vineyards of deathless Cypris.

An Old maid early eer I knew

An old maid early eer I knew
Ought but the love that on me grew
And now Im coverd oer & oer
And wish that I had been a Whore

O I cannot cannot find
The undaunted courage of a Virgin Mind
For Early I in love was crost
Before my flower of love was lost

A Tragedy

A MONG his books he sits all day
— To think and read and write;
He does not smell the new-mown hay,
— The roses red and white.

I walk among them all alone,
— His silly, stupid wife;
The world seems tasteless, dead and done —
— An empty thing is life.

At night his window casts a square
— Of light upon the lawn;
I sometimes walk and watch it there
— Until the chill of dawn.

I have no brain to understand
— The books he loves to read;
I only have a heart and hand

Amo, Amas, I Love a Lass

Amo, Amas, I love a lass
As a cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip's grace is her nominative case,
And she's of the feminine gender.

Rorum, Corum, sunt divorum,
Harum, Scarum divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hat-band
Hic hoc horum genitivo.

Can I decline a Nymph divine?
Her voice as a flute is dulcis.
Her oculus bright, her manus white,
And soft, when I tacto, her pulse is.

Rorum, Corum, sunt divorum,
Harum, Scarum divo;
Tag-rag, merry-derry, periwig and hat-band

A Love Symphony

A LONG the garden ways just now
— I heard the flowers speak;
The white rose told me of your brow,
— The red rose of your cheek;
The lily of your bended head,
— The bindweed of your hair;
Each looked its loveliest and said
— You were more fair.

I went into the wood anon,
— And heard the wild birds sing,
How sweet you were, they warbled on,
— Piped, trilled, the selfsame thing.
Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause
— The burden did repeat,
And still began again because

A Lady Laments for Her Lost Lover, by Similitude of a Falcon

A LAS for me, who loved a falcon well!
So well I loved him, I was nearly dead:
Ever at my low call he bent his head,
And ate of mine, not much, but all that fell.
Now he has fled, how high I cannot tell,
Much higher now than ever he has fled,
And is in a fair garden housed and fed;
Another lady, alas! shall love him well.
Oh, my own falcon whom I taught and rear'd!
Sweet bells of shining gold I gave to thee
That in the chase thou shouldst not be afeard.
Now thou hast risen like the risen sea,

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