WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
I LOVED a maid (oh, she was fair of face!)
But common words above
Was my true love—
So I was silent for a little space—
Yet, ’gainst the day I meant that she should hear me,
I sought for stately words that might endear me.
My ardent lips, I vowed, should not repeat
What countless lovers swear:—
“Oh, thou art fair!”
I scorned to merely say, “I love thee, Sweet!”
So spent long days with rhetoric and tutor,
In framing sentences I dreamed might suit her.
Oh, how I pondered what she best might hear!
Words should like jewels shine
To make her mine—
No commonplaces must offend her ear:
But while for proper words my passion tarried
I learned the maiden some one else had married!
Margaret Deland.