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THIS be a Love Letter for a Present, and when she is Catched, what shall I do with her? God knows! For 'tis safe to say I do not, and what we know not, is our only proof of Him!
My Love she is an Old Girl, out of Fashion, Bugles at the Bosom, and theredown a much Thumbed Mystery and a Maze. She doth jangle with last Year's attentions, she is melted with Death's Fire! Then what shall I for her that hath never been accomplished? It is a very Parcel of Perplexities! Shall one stumble on a Nuance that twenty Centuries have not pounced upon, yea worried and made a Kill of? Hath not her Hair of old been braided with the Stars? Her shin half-circled by the Moon. Hath she not been turned all ways that the Sands of her Desire know all Runnings? Who can make a New Path where there be no Wilderness? In the Salt Earth lie Parcels of lost Perfection--surely I shall not loosen her Straps a New Way, Love hath been too long a Time! Will she unpack her Panels for such a Stale Receipt, pour out her Treasures for a coin worn thin? Yet to renounce her were a thing as old; and saying "Go!" but shuts the Door that hath banged a million Years!
Oh Zeus! Oh Diane! Oh Hellebore! Oh Absalom! Oh Piscary Right! What shall I do with it! To have been the First, that alone would have gifted me! As it is, shall I not pour ashes upon my Head, gird me in Sackcloth, covering my Nothing and Despair under a Mountain of Cinders, and thus become a Monument to No-Ability for her sake?
Verily, I shall place me before her Door, and when she cometh forth I shall think she has left her Feet inward upon the Sill and when she enters in, I shall dream her Hands be yet outward upon the Door--for therein is no way for
me, and Fancy is
my only Craft.
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SAINTS DAYS
THESE are the Days on which Dame Musset was sainted, and for these things.
January
When new whelped, she was found to have missed by an Inch.
February
When but five, she lamented Mid-prayers, that the girls in the Bible were both Earth-hushed and Jew-touched forever and ever.
March
When nine she learned how the Knee termed Housemaid's is come by, when the Slavy was bedridden at the turn of the scullery and needed a kneeling-to.
April
When fast on fifteen she hushed a Near-Bride with the left Flounce of her Ruffle that her Father in sleeping might not know of the oh!
May
When sweet twenty-one prayed upon her past Bearing she went to the Cockpit and crowed with the best. And at the Full of the Moon in Gaiters and Gloves mooed with the Herd, her Heels with their Hoofs, and in the wet Dingle hooted for hoot with the Quail on the Spinney, calling for Brides Wing and a Feather to flock with.
June
When well thirty, she, like all Men before her, made a Harlot a good Woman by making her Mistress.
July
When forty she bayed up a Tree whose Leaves had no Turning and whose Name was Florella.
August
When fifty odd and a day she came upon that Wind that is labelled the second.
Septembre
When sixty some, she came to no Good as well as another.
October
When Sixty was no longer a Lodger of hers, she bought a Pair of extra far-off, and ultra near-to Opera Glasses, and carried them always in a Sac by her Side.
November
When eighty-eight she said, "It's a Hook Girl, not a Button, you should know your Dress better".
December
When just before her last Breath she ordered a Pasty and let a Friend eat it,
renouncing the World and its Pitfalls like Saints before her,
when she had no longer
Room for them.
Prosit!
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