TO ONE NOW ESTRANGED

Why dost thou ask my lips to fashion songsOther than this, my song of love to thee?See where I lie and pluck the thorns of grief,Dust on my head and fire, as one who mourns his slain.Are they not slain, my treasures of dear peace?This their red burial is, sand heaped on sand.Here came I…

And earth and heaven are black, then off we hieBy the night train to Paris, where we knowThree windows set to the meridian sky,A third floor in the Rue de Rivoli.There we will stop and see the fair world moveFor our sole pleasure past us, you and I,And make pretence we are once more in…

None the less loving that unloved was he,Must bear a child, the heir to his high house.Then Adrian left her. It was idle sorrowLonger to wait a suppliant at her door,Weeping the promise of a lost to–morrowWhich never could be his nor valued more.And he was tired of tears and nightly neededTo feed his manhood’s…

A fair–faced frightened boy with eyes of truthScared at the world yet angry at its laws,Plotting all plots, a blushing CatalineBetrayed by his own cheeks, a misanthropeIn love with all things human and divine,The very fool of fortune and high hope,You would deny you knew me. Oh, the daysOf our absurd first manhood, rich in…

In those first moments when I probed my heart,Less an enchantress seemed than enemy.My knowledge of the world had nothing human.I saw Mankind a tribe, my natural foe,Whom I must one day battle with; and Woman,Ah! Woman was a snare I did not know.Indeed, it may be that already hopeKnocked at my soul with tales…

How black these curtains, thick with murder cries,These chairs, this floor with things slain in the sun!‘Twas here I strangled love, a year ago,And hid it ‘neath these pillows drenched in blood,As a mad mother her sweet babe of woe,Too strong to die, too fair, which shrieks aloud.How black and bare and bitter the world…