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

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

Who call him spurious and shoddy Shall do it o’er my lifeless body. I heartily invite such birds To come outside and say those word…

This, no song of an ingénue, This, no ballad of innocence; This, the rhyme of a lady who Followed ever her natural bents. This, a solo of sapience,

The first time I died, I walked m… I followed the file of limping day… I held me tall, with my head flung… But I dared not look on the new m… I dared not look on the sweet youn…

Say my love is easy had, Say I’m bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad– Still behold me at your side. Say I’m neither brave nor young,

The stars are soft as flowers, and… The hills are webs of shadow, slow… No separate leaf or single blade i… All blend to one. No moonbeam cuts the air; a sapphi…

Some men, some men Cannot pass a Book shop. (Lady, make your mind up, and wait… Some men, some men

If I were mild, and I were sweet, And laid my heart before your feet… And took my dearest thoughts to yo… And hailed your easy lies as true; Were I to murmur “Yes,” and then

Ghosts of all my lovely sins, Who attend too well my pillow, Gay the wanton rain begins; Hide the limp and tearful willow. Turn aside your eyes and ears,

Go I must along my ways Though my heart be ragged, Dripping bitter through the days, Festering, and jagged. Smile I must at every twinge,

Hope it was that tutored me, And Love that taught me more; And now I learn at Sorrow’s knee The self-same lore.

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…

She that begs a little boon (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Little gets– and nothing, soon. (No, no, no! No, no, no!) She that calls for costly things

When I consider, pro and con, What things my love is built upon— A curly mouth; a sinewed wrist; A questioning brow; a pretty twist Of words as old and tried as sin;