* * *
Old stone house my father built,
Empty now and icy,
I was once your nestling shrill.
Don’t you recognise me?
«I can see you’re back again.
But what pleasure is it
If you come just now and then
On a flying visit?»
* * *
Babes cannot say
What makes them cry.
I’m fretting—
Do not ask me why!
The sun and wind
Look wrong to me,
The rain’s unkind,
Your voice off-key.
* * *
A new dawn breaks in soft grey light
Without the sun, for thick mist drowns
The fields where, ageing overnight,
The sodden earth now grimly frowns.
Across its face a shadow falls,
As when a loving mother waits
To greet her son, but sees his horse
Come empty-saddled through the gates.
* * *
A tiny grain of sand will bruise
Your feet and make them bleed.
If you do not shake out your shoes,
You’ll find you can’t proceed.
I tried, dear friend, to read your verse
But had to stop half-way,
For clumsy words and lines hurt more
Than shoe-sand any day.
* * *
I thought all the trees were in lily-white blossom,
But when I rode nearer I found it was snow.
I thought you would love me, be tender and docile—
I blundered again, but I can’t leave you now.
I race in the hills at a pace that is killing,
I haven’t a coat, black and wet are the screes.
My precious strong-willed one, my icicle-chill one,
Say, what must I do, warm—and pity me, please!
* * *
They say I am lavish with love, and a rake,
A gallant deceiver, and one of the worst.
They say it’s this woman, that woman I date.
They talk of a lapse «and by no means the first».
Don’t heed what they say! I have always been true,
Though memory go back no matter how far!
I’ve loved you alone, dear, I love only you,
Though still it’s a puzzle to me what you are!