Classic Poem

I

Satyrs used to fall for nymphs,
Just the same as other symphs;
Same as many a modern goof,
Cupid kept them on the hoof.

II

A woman, like the touted Sphinx,
Sits, and God knows what she thinks;
Hard-boiled men, who never fall,
Say she doesn't think at all.

III

Breathes there a man with hide so tough
Who says two sexes aren't enough?

IV

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Were I not born to be in Dutch.

V

Maid of Gotham, ere we part,
Have a hospitable heart —
Since our own delights must end,
Introduce me to your friend.

VI

She gave me her heart —
Oh, the sweetness of it!
She gave me her hand —
The petiteness of it!

She gave me herself —
Oh, the wonder of it!
I gave her myself —
Oh, the blunder of it!

VII

Little bride, come over here,
Tell me where you'll be next year;
Quite unfearful of my doom,
I should like to know with whom.

VIII

If you love me, as I love you,
We'll both be friendly and untrue.

IX

When you are tired of me, and I
Look mournfully upon the sky,
We shall be friends, I hope, and meet
Sometimes, and talk how times were sweet
When we were sure no sword could sever
Two people born to love forever.

X

When you are old, and want to stay
Beside the hearth the livelong day,
Weaving with memorial grace
Your youth in linen or in lace —

Oh, what a picture you will be
Of Age's sweet serenity;
A symbol of a tranquil home
From which but fools like me would roam!

XI

Let us build a little house
With instalments, love and craft,
Fit for you, my precious mouse —
Garden fore and garden aft.

There we'll love and play (I hope)
Work, beget and dream (I trust)
Sweetly with such problems cope
As plague whatever stems of dust.

We shall have such rosy tryst;
Ours will be a blessed fate;
Love will daily grow (I wist)
So (D.g.) will real estate.

When the jealous powers above
Magic from our couplet steal,
We may then conclude our love
With a profitable deal.

XII

My sanguine and adventurous dear,
Whom long experience taught no fear,
I shall make a ballad of
The repetitions of your love.

Every time you love again,
Former lovers failed in vain;
Your ardor rises like the sun
On the last and only one.

You but tell the simple truth
Out of your perennial youth;
When I sing of you, I sing
A heart whose every month is spring.

Marvellous unto my sight
Your quasi-virginal delight;
But dearer, sweeter, rarer yet,
How you remember to forget.

Bless your heart, that phoenix-wise,
Can from its amorous ashes rise:
The years their disappointments waste
On a memory so chaste.

XIII

Your little hands,
Your little feet,
Your little mouth —
Oh, God, how sweet!

Your little nose,
Your little ears,
Your eyes, that shed
Such little tears!

Your little voice,
So soft and kind;
Your little soul,
Your little mind!

XIV

Love, you brought me everything;
I gave little —
But the beauty that I sing
May be brittle; —

May be brittle, and so might —
Now I've spoken! —
Have fallen on another's sight
And been broken!

XV

The honey of the Hybla bees
Is not so sweet as kissing you;
Nor autumn wind in dying trees
So wistful is as missing you.

And when you are not mine to kiss,
My every thought is haunting you;
And when your mouth is mine, I miss
The wistfulness of wanting you.

XVI

Here we are together,
You and I,
In the amber autumn weather,
Yet we sigh,
And are quiet, disenchanted
By the bliss
That convinced us that we wanted
Only this!

Yet is this a cause for weeping
After all?
Isn't this a time for keeping
Festival,
When the high gods make decision
And ordain
That poor Cupid have his vision
Back again?

XVII

The lady of my heart is one
Who has no peer beneath the sun;
But mortal truths have mortal sequels —
Beneath the moon I know her equals.

XVIII

Had we but parted at the start,
I'd cut some figure in your heart;
And though the lands between were wide,
You'd often see me at your side.

But having loved and stayed, my dear,
I'm always everywhere but here,
And, still more paradoxical,
You always see me not at all.

XIX

My mate, my friend, my love, my life,
My bosom's — as the phrase is — wife;
My comrade in the hour of woe —
An hour whose limits I don't know —
My star in darkness, solace, balm,
My prophylaxis, refuge, calm,

Companion of the million blights
That plague my liver, purse and lights;
My pleasant garden in the gloam,
My all — if you were ever home!

XX

When I took you for my own,
You stood 'mong women all alone;
When I let the magic go,
You stood with women in a row.

XXI

In your anger be not just,
Lest your anger turn to dust;
Anger will make easy yet
The bitter footfalls of regret.

XXII

Darling, mistress of my heart,
In gray or sunny weather,
None but a better man shall part
What God has joined together.

XXIII

Without you, love, I must contend
With longing that has never end;
With loneliness, against whose bars
The sun is shattered and the stars;
With silence deeper than the sea,
That drowns the very thoughts of me.

With you, my sweet, I must endure
The cross of all who hold unsure
The precious boon; must ever hear
The insistent monotone of Fear;
Must ever toward the zenith ache,
Abasing self, for your dear sake.

In those serene and potent eyes
Is there no kindly compromise?
Will they not grant me this release:
To see their light and still have peace,
And let the deeps behind them be
For sturdier fish the fatal sea?