And now I have another lad! No longer need you tell How all my nights are slow and sad For loving you too well. His ways are not your wicked ways,

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,

He will love you presently If you be the way you be. Send your heart a-skittering. He will stoop, and lift the thing. Be your dreams as thread, to tease

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

There’s little to have but the thi… There’s little to bear but the thi… There’s nothing to carry and naugh… And glory to Heaven, I paid the s… There’s little to do but I did be…

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

Now it’s over, and now it’s done; Why does everything look the same? Just as bright, the unheeding sun,… Can’t it see that the parting came… People hurry and work and swear,

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.

Back of my back, they talk of me, Gabble and honk and hiss; Let them batten, and let them be– Me, I can sing them this: “Better to shiver beneath the star…

There still are kindly things for… Who am afraid to dream, afraid to… This little chair of scrubbed and… This easy book, this fire, sedate… And I shall stay with them, nor c…

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,

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,

The sun’s gone dim, and The moon’s turned black; For I loved him, and He didn’t love back.