When I was little,
My life was half fear.
My nerves were as brittle
As nature may bear.
...
O Robert Lee, you paladin,
I wonder how my words would strike you.
I know the portrait might have been
In many, many ways more like you.
...
I think about God.
Yet I talk of small matters.
Now isn't it odd
How my idle tongue chatters!
...
Just to utter a word,
That is all I desire;
That may still be heard,
When I expire;
...
Day and night I wander widely through the wilderness of thought, Catching dainty things of fancy most reluctant to be caught. Shining tangles leading nowhere I persistently unravel, Tread strange paths of meditation very intricate to travel.
...
I've had a few diseases,
And trifled with despair,
Tried failure which displeases,
And coquetted with care.
...
Sing a little, play a little,
Laugh a little; for
Life is so extremely brittle,
Who would think of more?
...
I'm sick to death of money, of the lack of it, that is,
And of practising perpetually small economies;
Of paring off a penny here, another penny there,
Of the planning and the worrying, the everlasting care.
...
They met, as it were, in a mist,
Pale, curious, eager, uncertain.
When each clasped the other and kissed,
The mist rolled aside like a curtain.
...
The huge old earth shook and quivered,
When it heard my passionate cry.
Why, even the little stars shivered
And almost went out in the sky.
...