Do What You Will. Poem by David Lewis Paget

‘The best, you left with me! ’
That part I loved in you
Is with me still,
And dream-sleeps in my memory –
Do what you will.

Nor will your storms and tempests
In their shallow pique
Drive it away.
Your moods and clamours melt
At my disarray.

To mutter at the distances
Long laid between us;
With sword, spite and quill,
You cut me at the quick,
I score your spill.

‘Til you do leave, have gone,
To leave me with this,
One battered heart;
I stroke and touch at will
Your better part.

While you play now at roaming
To mourn black birth,
In some deep glooming
At the dark side of the earth.

25 July 1985