War is Kind

Fool, not to know that thy little shoe
Can make men weep!
—Some men weep.
I weep and I gnash,
And I love the little shoe,
The little, little shoe.

God give me medals,
God give me loud honors,
That I may strut before you, sweetheart,
And be worthy of—
The love I bear you.

Now let me crunch you
With full weight of affrighted love.
I doubted you
—I doubted you—
And in this short doubting
My love grew like a genie
For my further undoing.

Beware of my friends,
Be not in speech too civil,
For in all courtesy
My weak heart sees spectres,
Mists of desire
Arising from the lips of my chosen;
Be not civil.

The flower I gave thee once
Was incident to a stride,
A detail of a gesture,
But search those pale petals
And see engraven thereon
A record of my intention.

Ah, God, the way your little finger moved,
As you thrust a bare arm backward
And made play with your hair
And a comb, a silly gilt comb
—Ah, God—that I should suffer
Because of the way a little finger moved.

Once I saw thee idly rocking
—Idly rocking—
And chattering girlishly to other girls,
Bell-voiced, happy,
Careless with the stout heart of unscarred
womanhood,
And life to thee was all light melody.
I thought of the great storms of love as I
knew it,
Torn, miserable, and ashamed of my open
sorrow,
I thought of the thunders that lived in my
head,
And I wish to be an ogre,
And hale and haul my beloved to a castle,
And make her mourn with my mourning.

Tell me why, behind thee,
I see always the shadow of another lover?
Is it real,
Or is this the thrice damned memory of a
better happiness?
Plague on him if he be dead,
Plague on him if he be alive—
A swinish numskull
To intrude his shade
Always between me and my peace!

And yet I have seen thee happy with me.
I am no fool
To poll stupidly into iron.
I have heard your quick breaths
And seen your arms writhe toward me;
At those times
—God help us—
I was impelled to be a grand knight,
And swagger and snap my fingers,
And explain my mind finely.
Oh, lost sweetheart,
I would that I had not been a grand knight.
I said: “Sweetheart.”
Thou said'st: “Sweetheart.”
And we preserved an admirable mimicry
Without heeding the drip of the blood
From my heart.

I heard thee laugh,
And in this merriment
I defined the measure of my pain;
I knew that I was alone,
Alone with love,
Poor shivering love,
And he, little sprite,
Came to watch with me,
And at midnight,
We were like two creatures by a dead camp-
fire.