Overtures

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My dear and I, we disagreed
  When we had been much time together.
  For when will lovers learn to sail
  From sailing always in good weather?


  She said a hateful little word
  Between the pages of the book.
  I bubbled with a noble rage,
  I bruised her with a dreadful look,


  And thanked her kindly for the word
  Of such a little silly thing;
  Indeed I loved my poet then
  Beyond my dear, or anything.


  And she, the proud girl, swept away,
  How swift and scornfully she went!
  And I the frightened lover stayed,
  And have not had one hour's content


  Until to-day; until I knew
  That I was loved again, again;
  Then hazard how this thing befel,
  Brother of women and of men?


  "Perhaps a gallant gentleman
  Accomplished it, who saw you bleed;
  Perhaps she wrote upon the book
  A riddling thing that you could read;


  "Perhaps she crept to you, and cried,
  And took upon her all the blame."
  O no, do proud girls creep and cry?
  "Perhaps she whispered you your name."


  O no, she walked alone, and I
  Was walking in the rainy wood,
  And saw her drooping by the tree,
  And saw my work of widowhood.

© John Crowe Ransom