If I were mild, and I were sweet, And laid my heart before your feet… And took my dearest thoughts to yo… And hailed your easy lies as true; Were I to murmur “Yes,” and then

In youth, it was a way I had To do my best to please, And change, with every passing lad… To suit his theories. But now I know the things I know,

I think, no matter where you stray… That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter land… You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head,

I was seventy-seven, come August, I shall shortly be losing my bloom… I’ve experienced zephyr and raw gu… And (symbolical) flood and simoom. When you come to this time of abat…

Back of my back, they talk of me, Gabble and honk and hiss; Let them batten, and let them be– Me, I can sing them this: “Better to shiver beneath the star…

God’s acre was her garden-spot, sh… She sat there often, of the Summe… Little and slim and sweet, among t… Her hair a fable in the leveled ra… She turned the fading wreath, the…

Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed– I think they would be better dead.

Oh, is it, then, Utopian To hope that I may meet a man Who’ll not relate, in accents suav… The tales of girls he used to have…

This level reach of blue is not my… Here are sweet waters, pretty in t… Whose quiet ripples meet obedientl… A marked and measured line, one af… This is no sea of mine, that humbl…

My garden blossoms pink and white, A place of decorous murmuring, Where I am safe from August night And cannot feel the knife of Spri… And I may walk the pretty place

Some men break your heart in two, Some men fawn and flatter, Some men never look at you; And that cleans up the matter.

The day that I was christened– It’s a hundred years, and more!- A hag came and listened At the white church door, A-hearing her that bore me