A WISH   A KING'S DAUGHTER
THE WAY I BEHAVED   ELI'S SONG
 
 
 

A WISH

If I danced with my feet
As I dance in my dreaming,
As graceful and gleaming
As Death in disguise—
Oh, that would be sweet,
But then would I hunger
To be ten years younger,
Or wedded, or wise?

A KING'S DAUGHTER

I am a king's daughter,
And if I had a care,
The moon that has no mistress,
Would flutter in my hair.
No one dares to cherish
What I choose to crave.
Never have I hungered
That I did not have.

I am a king's daughter,
And I grow old within
The prison of my person,
The shackles of my skin.
And I would run away
And beg from door to door,
Just to see your shadow
Once and never more.

THE WAY I BEHAVED

When I was a young man, and very well thought of,
I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied.
I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins,
And I never spoke love but I knew that I lied.

But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them know
The secret I shelter and savor and save.
I wait for the one who will see through my seeming,
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave."

The years drifted over like clouds in the heavens;
The ladies went by me like snow on the wind.
I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled,
And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned.

But I said to myself, "Ah, they none of them see
There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave.
My lady is late, but she'll find I've been faithful,
And I'll know when I love by the way I behave."

At last came a lady both knowing and tender,
Saying, "You're not at all what they take you to be."
I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking,
And she swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea.

And I say to myself, when there's time for a word,
As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved,
"Ah, love may be strong, but habit is stronger,
And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved."

ELI'S SONG

What is plucked will grow again,
What is slain lives on,
What is stolen will remain—
What is gone is gone.

What is sea-born dies on land,
Soft is trod upon.
What is given burns the hand—
What is gone is gone.

Here is there, and high is low;
All may be undone.
What is true no two men know—
What is gone is gone.

Who has choices need not choose.
We must, who have none.
We can love but what we lose—
What is gone is gone.