Unto seventy years and seven, Hide your double birthright well– You, that are the brat of Heaven And the pampered heir to Hell. Let your rhymes be tinsel treasure…

If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful;

Maidens, gather not the yew, Leave the glossy myrtle sleeping; Any lad was born untrue, Never a one is fit your weeping. Pretty dears, your tumult cease;

Little things that no one needs— Little things to joke about— Little landscapes, done in beads. Little morals, woven out, Little wreaths of gilded grass,

I cannot rest, I cannot rest In straight and shiny wood, My woven hands upon my breast— The dead are all so good! The earth is cool across their eye…

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,

Oh, lead me to a quiet cell Where never footfall rankles, And bar the window passing well, And gyve my wrists and ankles. Oh, wrap my eyes with linen fair,

And if my heart be scarred and bur… The safer, I, for all I learned; The calmer, I, to see it true That ways of love are never new — The love that sets you daft and da…

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt… And drink your rushing words with… And paint my mouth for you a fragr… And trace your brows with tutored… When you rehearse your list of lov…

Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there,

Travel, trouble, music, art, A kiss, a frock, a rhyme– I never said they feed my heart, But still they pass my time.

Authors and actors and artists and… Never know nothing, and never know… Sculptors and singers and those of… Tell their affairs from Seattle t… Playwrights and poets and such hor…