I’m sick of embarking in dories Upon an emotional sea. I’m wearied of playing Dolores (A role never written for me). I’ll never again like a cub lick

Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses.

Oh, mercifullest one of all, Oh, generous as dear, None lived so lowly, none so small… Thou couldst withhold thy tear: How swift, in pure compassion,

Travel, trouble, music, art, A kiss, a frock, a rhyme– I never said they feed my heart, But still they pass my time.

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,

In youth, it was a way I had To do my best to please, And change, with every passing lad… To suit his theories. But now I know the things I know,

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…

If she had been beautiful, even, Or wiser than women about her, Or had moved with a certain defian… If she had had sons at her sides, And she with her hands on their sh…

In April, in April, My one love came along, And I ran the slope of my high hi… To follow a thread of song. His eyes were hard as porphyry

So take my vows and scatter them t… Who swears the sweetest is no more… And say no kinder words than these… “Ever she longed for peace, but wa… And thus they are, whose silly fem…

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,

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

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

Death’s the lover that I’d be tak… Wild and fickle and fierce is he. Small’s his care if my heart be br… Gay young Death would have none o… Hear them clack of my haste to gre…

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;