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, 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:

The pure and worthy Mrs. Stowe Is one we all are proud to know As mother, wife, and authoress– Thank God, I am content with less…

They laid their hands upon my head… They stroked my cheek and brow; And time could heal a hurt, they s… And time could dim a vow. And they were pitiful and mild

This I say, and this I know: Love has seen the last of me. Love’s a trodden lane to woe, Love’s a path to misery. This I know, and knew before,

Lady, lady, should you meet One whose ways are all discreet, One who murmurs that his wife Is the lodestar of his life, One who keeps assuring you

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

Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed– I think they would be better dead.

Love has gone a-rocketing. That is not the worst; I could do without the thing, And not be the first. Joy has gone the way it came.

Here in my heart I am Helen; I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least. I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame… I’m Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho;

The bird that feeds from off my pa… Is sleek, affectionate, and calm, But double, to me, is worth the th… A-flickering in the elder-bush.

Oh, I should like to ride the sea… A roaring buccaneer; A cutlass banging at my knees, A dirk behind my ear. And when my captives’ chains would…

Oh, let it be a night of lyric rai… And singing breezes, when my bell… I have so loved the rain that I w… Last in my ears its friendly, dim… I shall lie cool and quiet, who ha…

And if my heart be scarred and bur… The safer, I, for all I learned; The calmer, I, to see it true That ways of love are never new — The love that sets you daft and da…