I met a man the other day– A kindly man, and serious– Who viewed me in a thoughtful way, And spoke me so, and spoke me thus… “Oh, dallying’s a sad mistake;

Lady, lady, never start Conversation toward your heart; Keep your pretty words serene; Never murmur what you mean. Show yourself, by word and look,

I cannot rest, I cannot rest In straight and shiny wood, My woven hands upon my breast— The dead are all so good! The earth is cool across their eye…

When I was bold, when I was bold– And that’s a hundred years!- Oh, never I thought my breast cou… The terrible weight of tears. I said: “Now some be dolorous;

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,

My garden blossoms pink and white, A place of decorous murmuring, Where I am safe from August night And cannot feel the knife of Spri… And I may walk the pretty place

So let me have the rouge again, And comb my hair the curly way. The poor young men, the dear young… They’ll all be here by noon today. And I shall wear the blue, I thin…

When my eyes are weeds, And my lips are petals, spinning Down the wind that has beginning Where the crumpled beeches start In a fringe of salty reeds;

My hand, a little raised, might pr… Where I may look, the frosted pea… So shaped before Olympus was begu… Spanned each to each, now, by a si… Thus to face Beauty have I travel…

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,

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 days will rally, wreathing Their crazy tarantelle; And you must go on breathing, But I’ll be safe in hell. Like January weather,

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:

There was one a-riding grand On a tall brown mare, And a fine gold band He brought me there. A little, gold band