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,

You are brief and frail and blue– Little sisters, I am, too. You are Heaven’s masterpieces– Little loves, the likeness ceases.

Oh, when I flung my heart away, The year was at its fall. I saw my dear, the other day, Beside a flowering wall; And this was all I had to say:

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

Tonight my love is sleeping cold Where none may see and none shall… The daisies quicken in the mold, And richer fares the meadow grass. The warding cypress pleads the ski…

This level reach of blue is not my… Here are sweet waters, pretty in t… Whose quiet ripples meet obedientl… A marked and measured line, one af… This is no sea of mine, that humbl…

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

Who lay against the sea, and fled, Who lightly loved the wave, Shall never know, when he is dead, A cool and murmurous grave. But in a shallow pit shall rest

Oh, there once was a lady, and so… Whose lover grew weary, whose love… “My child,” he remarked, “though o… In the manner of men, I suggest w… And the truest of friends ever aft…

Dear dead Victoria Rotted cosily; In excelsis gloria, And R. I. P. And her shroud was buttoned neat,

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;

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

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…