BE NOT concerned about her heart, my heart: leave it in the dark. What if her beauty be of the figure and her smile merely of the face? Let me take without question the simple meaning of her glances and be happy. I care not if it be a web of delusion that her arms wind about me, for the web itself is rich and rare, and the deceit can be smiled at and forgotten. Be not concerned about her heart, my heart: be content if the music is true, though the words are not to be believed; enjoy the grace that dances like a lily on the rippling, deceiving surface, whatever may lie beneath.
MY WORLD, when I was a child, you were a little girl-neighbour, a loving timid stranger. Then you grew bold and talked to me across the fence, offering me toys and flowers and shells. Next you coaxed me away from my work, you tempted me into the land of the dusk or the weedy corner of some garden in mid-day loneliness. At length you told me stories about bygone times, with which the present ever longs to meet so as to be rescued from its prison in the moment.