#Americans #Women
She that begs a little boon (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Little gets– and nothing, soon. (No, no, no! No, no, no!) She that calls for costly things
When I am old, and comforted, And done with this desire, With Memory to share my bed And Peace to share my fire, I’ll comb my hair in scalloped ban…
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
When I consider, pro and con, What things my love is built upon— A curly mouth; a sinewed wrist; A questioning brow; a pretty twist Of words as old and tried as sin;
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
I know I have been happiest at yo… But what is done, is done, and all… And small the good, to linger dole… Gayly it lived, and gallantly it d… I will not make you songs of heart…
This I say, and this I know: Love has seen the last of me. Love’s a trodden lane to woe, Love’s a path to misery. This I know, and knew before,
Dearest one, when I am dead Never seek to follow me. Never mount the quiet hill Where the copper leaves are still, As my heart is, on the tree
With you, my heart is quiet here, And all my thoughts are cool as ra… I sit and let the shifting year Go by before the windowpane, And reach my hand to yours, my dea…
Daily I listen to wonder and woe, Nightly I hearken to knave or to… Telling me stories of lava and sno… Delicate fables of ribbon and lace… Tales of the quarry, the kill, the…
Hope it was that tutored me, And Love that taught me more; And now I learn at Sorrow’s knee The self-same lore.
So let me have the rouge again, And comb my hair the curly way. The poor young men, the dear young… They’ll all be here by noon today. And I shall wear the blue, I thin…
This, no song of an ingénue, This, no ballad of innocence; This, the rhyme of a lady who Followed ever her natural bents. This, a solo of sapience,
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,
