And let her loves, when she is dead,
Write this above her bones:
"No more she lives to give us bread
Who asked her only stones."

Crimson and cream and white -
My room is a garden of roses!
Centre and left and right,
Three several splendid posies.

As the sender is, they are sweet,
These lovely gifts of your sending,
With the stifling summer heat
Their delicate fragrance blending.

What more can my heart desire?
Has it lost the power to be grateful?
Is it only a burnt-out fire,
Whose ashes are dull and hateful?

Yet still to itself it doth say,
`I should have loved far better
To have found, coming in to-day,

Never love a simple lad,
Guard against a wise,
Shun a timid youth and sad,
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son,
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather up your skirts and run
From a tender way.

Never give away a tear,
Never toss a pine;
Should you heed my words, my dear,
You're no blood of mine!

Fly, Love, aloft to heav'n and look out Fortune,
Then sweetly, sweetly, sweetly her importune,
That I from my Calisto best beloved
As you and she set down be never moved.
And, Love, to Carimel see you commend me,
Fortune for his sweet sake may chance befriend me.

Fly away, fly away over the sea,
Sun-loving swallow, for summer is done;
Come again, come again, come back to me,
Bringing the summer and bringing the sun.

'We are sending you, dear flowers,
Forth alone to die,
Where your gentle sisters may not weep
O'er the cold graves where you lie;
But you go to bring them fadeless life
In the bright homes where they dwell,
And you softly smile that 't is so,
As we sadly sing farewell.

O plead with gentle words for us,
And whisper tenderly
Of generous love to that cold heart,
And it will answer ye;
And though you fade in a dreary home,
Yet loving hearts will tell
Of the joy and peace that you have given:

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common
clay
I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the
larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,
Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,
You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone
Suffices. In this moment rare and tense
I worship at your breast. The flower is blown,
The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,
The yellow heart is radiant now with dew
Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;
O flower of love! I give myself to you.
Uncovered on your couch of figured green,
Here let us linger indivisible.
The portals of your sanctuary unseen
Receive my offering, yielding unto me.

Flavius, unless your delights
were tasteless and inelegant,
you’d want to tell, and couldn’t be silent.
Surely you’re in love with some feverish
little whore: you’re ashamed to confess it.
Now, pointlessly silent, you don’t seem to be
idle of nights, it’s proclaimed by your bed
garlanded, fragrant with Syrian perfume,
squashed cushions and pillows, here and there,
and the trembling frame shaken,
quivering and wandering about.
But being silent does nothing for you.
Why? Spread thighs blab it’s not so,

To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books
from the lullabies of the mothers
to the news report that the speaker reads,
understanding, my love, what a great joy it is,
to understand what is gone and what is on the way.