#AmericanWriters
If it shine or if it rain, Little will I care or know. Days, like drops upon a pane, Slip, and join, and go. At my door’s another lad;
You are brief and frail and blue– Little sisters, I am, too. You are Heaven’s masterpieces– Little loves, the likeness ceases.
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…
Dear dead Victoria Rotted cosily; In excelsis gloria, And R. I. P. And her shroud was buttoned neat,
Should they whisper false of you. Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and swear they lie.
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;
Carlyle combined the lit’ry life With throwing teacups at his wife, Remarking, rather testily, “Oh, stop your dodging, Mrs. C.!”
Here in my heart I am Helen; I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least. I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame… I’m Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Sleep, pretty lady, the night is e… Drift, and so lightly, on crystall… Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkn… Starlight bespangles the way of yo… Chorus the nightingales, wistfully…
If I had a shiny gun, I could have a world of fun Speeding bullets through the brain… Of the folk who give me pains; Or had I some poison gas,
The friends I made have slipped a… And who’s the one that cares? A trifling lot and best forgot– And that’s my tale, and theirs. Then if my friendships break and b…
Now it’s over, and now it’s done; Why does everything look the same? Just as bright, the unheeding sun,… Can’t it see that the parting came… People hurry and work and swear,
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…
I met a man the other day– A kindly man, and serious– Who viewed me in a thoughtful way, And spoke me so, and spoke me thus… “Oh, dallying’s a sad mistake;
Love has gone a-rocketing. That is not the worst; I could do without the thing, And not be the first. Joy has gone the way it came.