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207 days ago
I, Being Born a Woman I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body’s weight upon my breast: So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again.
207 days ago
After Love There is no magic any more, We meet as other people do, You work no miracle for me Nor I for you. You were the wind and I the sea— There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool Beside the shore. But though the pool is safe from storm And from the tide has found surcease, It grows more bitter than the sea, For all its peace.
207 days ago
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars
207 days ago
The Author Apologizes to a Lady for His Being a Little Man Yes, contumelious fair, you scorn The amorous dwarf that courts you to his arms, But ere you leave him quite forlorn, And to some youth gigantic yield your charms, Hear him—oh hear him, if you will not try, And let your judgement check th’ ambition of your eye. Say, is it carnage makes the man? Is to be monstrous really to be great? Say, is it wise or just to scan Your lover’s worth by quantity or weight? Ask your mamma and nurse, if it be so; Nurse and mamma I ween shall jointly answer, no. The less the body to the view, The soul (like springs in closer durance pent) Is all exertion, ever new, Unceasing, unextinguished, and unspent; Still pouring forth executive desire, As bright, as brisk, and lasting, as the vestal fire. Does thy young bosom pant for fame: Would’st thou be of posterity the toast? The poets shall endure thy name, Who magnitude of mind not body ...
