When Love Comes Singing To His Heart – Sara Teasdale

When Love comes singing to his heart
That would not wake for me,
I think that I shall know his joy
By my own ecstasy.

And tho’ the sea were all between,
The time their hands shall meet,
My heart will know his happiness,
So wildly it will beat.

And when he bends above her mouth,
Rejoicing for his sake,
My soul will sing a little song,
But oh, my heart will break.

Possession – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

That which we had we still possess,
Though leaves may drop and stars may fall;
No circumstance can make it less,
Or take it from us, all in all.

That which is lost we did not own;
We only held it for a day—
A leaf by careless breezes blown;
No fate could take our own away.

I hold it as a changeless law
From which no soul can sway or swerve,
We have that in us which will draw
Whate’er we need or most deserve.

Even as the magnet to the steel
Our souls are to our best desires;
The Fates have hearts and they can feel—
They know what each true life requires.

We think we lose when we most gain;
We call joys ended ere begun;
When stars fade out do skies complain,
Or glory in the rising sun?

No fate could rob us of our own—
No circumstance can make it less;
What time removes was but a loan,
For what was ours we still possess.

Fighting Words – Dorothy Parker

Say my love is easy had,
Say I’m bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad—
Still behold me at your side.

Say I’m neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue—
Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!

Make Believe – Alice Cary

KISS me, though you make believe;
Kiss me, though I almost know
You are kissing to deceive:
Let the tide one moment flow
Backward ere it rise and break,
Only for poor pity’s sake!

Give me of your flowers one leaf,
Give me of your smiles one smile,
Backward roll this tide of grief
Just a moment, though, the while,
I should feel and almost know
You are trifling with my woe.

Whisper to me sweet and low;
Tell me how you sit and weave
Dreams about me, though I know
It is only make believe!
Just a moment, though ’tis plain
You are jesting with my pain.

My Papa’s Waltz – Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.