LINES INSPIRED BY TRYING TO IMAGINE WHAT A MAGAZINE ART EDITOR ORDERING A COVER TELLS MR. CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD

Picture the lady's stocking;
 Be sure you don't forget
The dear little dimpled darling
 Displaying her toes et cet.

When my heart has ceased for ever beating out the dirge of time,
Lay me by some quiet river, 'neath the ivy spray and thyme,
Place no fading, fragrant roses, o'er the dew-be-sprinkled moss,
For the weary sleeper chooses but the evergreen and cross.

Love will live while the pale stars glow, while the world shall last,
On the present hopes, and in hours of woe, on a dreamy past,
Love will live, while the flowers bloom, and the meadows wave;
Nor yet be quenched by the charnel tomb — the ghastly grave;
For o'er the tomb and the silver stars, to the gates above
The soul will seek in the great Afar the Endless Love.

For my Sister's sake
In plucking with my hand
The plum-blossom of the top branch
I have got wet
With the dew of the lower boughs!

Here is no sacramental I .
Here are more I's than yet were in one human
Here I reveal our common mystery —
I give you " Woman. "
Let it be known for our old world's relief,
I give you woman — and my method's brief!

I heard a pander say in scorn of a bawd,
" A child should be her reward. "
O rotten speech!
Whose filthiness should teach
That man shall find
Reward for his lewd living, in his mind.

God send a higher courage
For to cut straight and clean!
God send a juster language,
To state the thing I mean!
Here is such random thinking,
Such sloth, such slime, such fog,
I see an old cow sinking
Deep, in a pitchy bog!

How did she abdicate?
Was it with soft sighs
And pretty feignings of a lover's state,
Or was it solemn-wise,
With altar offerings and rapt vows?
O no! when Love himself was there,
Most housewifely she bound her hair
And went off across the field to milk the cows.

A man can build a bridge of wood and stone;
Exterior forces his trained powers control;
But the material of the Singer is his own,
He cuts his songs from the raw texture of his soul.

From Pisa cross the Sea Alpheus straies,
And with his Olive-fertile stream conveyes
To Arethuse leaves, sacred ashes, flowers,
Which headlong into hers his current poures:
Under the Sea flowes his unmingled Tide,
Nor knows the Sea what waves beneath him glide;
Thus Love, that little Tyrant, can direct
Rivers to swim to those whom they affect.