A Lover's Litanies

by Eric Mackay

xviii.

I should have learnt a lesson from the songs
Of woodland birds discoursing on the wrongs
Of madcap moths and bachelor butterflies.
I should have caught the cadence of the sighs
Of unwed flowers, and learnt the way to woo,
Which all things know but I, beneath the blue
Of Heaven's great dome; for, undesired of thee,
I have but jarr'd the notes that seem'd so true.