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Show TO A MISTRESS. In the world of loving, in tho world of living, I find you true, and I find you glad. All of my faults and my sins forgiving, And only sad when myself am sad. Tho best of women, they say, are bad. Your face has the stamp of tho mold heroic Always unquestioning. Ah, how strange 1 With a smile serene as the Spartan stoic, However my wayward fancies range. And death might kiss you, and find no change. You say 'tis enough if I smiling fling you (I quoto your language) a rose some time; More than enough if I come to bring you What seems to you as a thought sublime A shred of my soul in a vagrant rhyme. Yet, sometimes, surely I doubtless grieve you, For women treasure the little things. A careless look when I turn to leave you How deep in a woman's heart it stings. And yot she close to her idol clings. The love you bear with a glory folds you As ono who walks in white samite clad. I know you good as your law upholds you With faith liko that which the prophets had. The best of women, they say, are bad. Whatever tho world says has your scorning. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Not even my own hard note of warning, Nor ancient legend of moth and rust Can make you listen, or shake your trust. I toll you true, I am worlds below you In all that is best of our nature shown. With logic pitiless clear I show you How woman's lovo to tho dregs is thrown; And my words are chaff to tho breozes blown. Is it because that you catch at tho slender And shadowy warp of tho last days fledl And dream when my mood to your mood was tender That Fate had knitted tholirokon thread 1 Does it mean so much for a kind word said? I know this much: That a man's devotion "" Will ebb and flow liko tho ftcklo tides That cross a rock in the trackless ocean . Or hero or there, as the palo moon guidog And a woman's lovo like the rock abidos. In tho world this side of the dim hereafter Whore friends have failed mo, and life grows sad, I bravo' for your love, and I crave your laughter; And hero at tho last the proverb a,dd: Tho host of Women, they say, are bad. Ernst McGaffy. |