Lady, lady, never start Conversation toward your heart; Keep your pretty words serene; Never murmur what you mean. Show yourself, by word and look,

Only name the day, and we’ll fly a… In the face of old traditions, To a sheltered spot, by the world… Where we’ll park our inhibitions. Come and gaze in eyes where the lo…

Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine; Refresh your recollection, And sit a moment, to define His means of self-protection. How truly fortified is he!

Too long and quickly have I lived… The woe that stretches me shall ne… Too often seen the end of endless… To swear that peace no more shall… I know, I know– again the shrivel…

A dream lies dead here. May you s… Before this place, and turn away y… Nor seek to know the look of that… Importuning Life for life. Walk n… But, for a little, let your step b…

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…

Were you to cross the world, my de… To work or love or fight, I could be calm and wistful here, And close my eyes at night. It were a sweet and gallant pain

The same to me are sombre days and… Though joyous dawns the rosy morn,… Because my dearest love is gone aw… Within my heart is melancholy nigh… My heart beats low in loneliness,…

He’d have given me rolling lands, Houses of marble, and billowing fa… Pearls, to trickle between my hand… Smoldering rubies, to circle my ar… You– you’d only a lilting song,

They laid their hands upon my head… They stroked my cheek and brow; And time could heal a hurt, they s… And time could dim a vow. And they were pitiful and mild

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

They hurried here, as soon as you… Their faces damp with haste and sy… And pressed my hand in theirs, and… And clicked their tongues, and wat… Gently they told me of that Other…

Then let them point my every tear, And let them mock and moan; Another week, another year, And I’ll be with my own Who slumber now by night and day

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…

Upon the work of Walter Landor I am unfit to write with candor. If you can read it, well and good; But as for me, I never could.