I think about God. Yet I talk of small matters. Now isn’t it odd How my idle tongue chatters! Of quarrelsome neighbors,

I like to read confessions As lengthy as Rousseau’s, With all their slow processions Of innumerable woes. I revel in Cellini,

Others may seem gay and certain, Steering one unbroken line. But lift up the heart’s dim curtai… It might prove as frail as mine. Full of shift and light vagary,

Down come the leaves, Like fleeting years, Or idle tears Of love that grieves. A tinkling trill,

Just to utter a word, That is all I desire; That may still be heard, When I expire; That still may glow,

You may think my life is quiet. I find it full of change, An ever-varied diet, As piquant as ’tis strange. Wild thoughts are always flying,

I deliver a lecture And pour out my soul, Its full architecture, All rounded and whole. But with those I love best

My life is governed by the clock, All duly mapped and plotted; And only with a nervous shock I miss the time allotted. My course without has always been

I’m sick to death of money, of the… And of practising perpetually smal… Of paring off a penny here, anothe… Of the planning and the worrying,… The savages went naked and no doub…

I’ve been a hopeless sinner, but… saint, Their bend of weary knees and thei… tortions long and faint, And the endless pricks of conscien…

I had visited her often, Long had sought, with vain endeavo… Her obdurate heart to soften; But she answered, ‘never, never.’ Then it softened and ran widely,

A bit of metaphysics or a psycholo… Will sit upon my breast all day an… scratch. Now isn’t it a pity that… I really have no liking for abstru… I prefer to laugh in sunshine and…

Others make verses of grace. Mine are all muscle and sinew. Others can picture your face. But I all the tumult within you. Others can give you delight,

I’ve had a few diseases, And trifled with despair, Tried failure which displeases, And coquetted with care. But through the stormy weather

You think my songs are strange. I think they are myself. I let my fancy range’€” The divagating elf. Don’t say my songs are common.