#AmericanWriters
Lady, if you’d slumber sound, Keep your eyes upon the ground. If you’d toss and turn at night, Slip your glances left and right. Would the mornings find you gay,
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,
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;
This is what I vow; He shall have my heart to keep, Sweetly will we stir and sleep, All the years, as now. Swift the measured sands may run;
I shall tread, another year, Ways I walked with Grief, Past the dry, ungarnered ear And the brittle leaf. I shall stand, a year apart,
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
My heart went fluttering with fear Lest you should go, and leave me h… To beat my breast and rock my head And stretch me sleepless on my bed… Ah, clear they see and true they s…
Go I must along my ways Though my heart be ragged, Dripping bitter through the days, Festering, and jagged. Smile I must at every twinge,
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
Every love’s the love before In a duller dress. That’s the measure of my lore– Here’s my bitterness: Would I knew a little more,
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…
Say my love is easy had, Say I’m bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad– Still behold me at your side. Say I’m neither brave nor young,
Now this must be the sweetest plac… From here to heaven’s end; The field is white with flowering… The birches leap and bend, The hills, beneath the roving sun,
Roses, rooted warm in earth, Bud in rhyme, another age; Lilies know a ghostly birth Strewn along a patterned page; Golden lad and chimbley sweep
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…