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

Into love and out again, Thus I went, and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pe… Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung,

This level reach of blue is not my… Here are sweet waters, pretty in t… Whose quiet ripples meet obedientl… A marked and measured line, one af… This is no sea of mine, that humbl…

Every love’s the love before In a duller dress. That’s the measure of my lore– Here’s my bitterness: Would I knew a little more,

If I were mild, and I were sweet, And laid my heart before your feet… And took my dearest thoughts to yo… And hailed your easy lies as true; Were I to murmur “Yes,” and then

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

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

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.

Tonight my love is sleeping cold Where none may see and none shall… The daisies quicken in the mold, And richer fares the meadow grass. The warding cypress pleads the ski…

Half across the world from me Lie the lands I’ll never see– I, whose longing lives and dies Where a ship has sailed away; I, that never close my eyes

Star, that gives a gracious dole, What am I to choose? Oh, will it be a shriven soul, Or little buckled shoes? Shall I wish a wedding-ring,

Hope it was that tutored me, And Love that taught me more; And now I learn at Sorrow’s knee The self-same lore.

Daily I listen to wonder and woe, Nightly I hearken to knave or to… Telling me stories of lava and sno… Delicate fables of ribbon and lace… Tales of the quarry, the kill, the…

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