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

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,

Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through… For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)

Oh, I’d been better dying, Oh, I was slow and sad; A fool I was, a-crying About a cruel lad! But there was one that found me,

I always say, I always said If I were grown and free, I’d have a gown of reddest red As fine as you could see, To wear out walking, sleek and slo…

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…

Lilacs blossom just as sweet Now my heart is shattered. If I bowled it down the street, Who’s to say it mattered? If there’s one that rode away

Should Heaven send me any son, I hope he’s not like Tennyson. I’d rather have him play a fiddle Than rise and bow and speak an idy…

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

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

She’s passing fair; but so demure… So quiet is her gown, so smooth he… That few there are who note her an… She’s passing fair. Yet when was ever beauty held more…

They hail you as their morning sta… Because you are the way you are. If you return the sentiment, They’ll try to make you different; And once they have you, safe and s…

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…

All her hours were yellow sands, Blown in foolish whorls and tassel… Slipping warmly through her hands; Patted into little castles. Shiny day on shiny day

Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there,