Mortal Lovers

 

Year on years, pages and pages, 

I have soaked myself in sages.
You who come here, the unwary,
longing to complete your knowledge
in the ventriloquil college,
pause, perhaps, but do not tarry.

All these parti-colored bindings
bind the heart in all its windings;
flecks of red on green and blue,
all they are , all they stand for,
saturate the heart with candor.
They are what you turn into.

Daphne, who, however stately,
could not be the god who lately
ran her down amid the clover,
Daphne’s lovely, green, and shady,
but had rather been a lady
with a flawed, a mortal lover.