THE BALLADE OF DON JUAN DEAD
My days for singing and loving are over,
And stark I lie in my narrow bed,
I care not at all if roses cover,
Or if above me the snow is spread;
I am weary of dreaming of my sweet dead,
All gone like me unto common clay.
Life's bowers are full of love's fair fray,
Of piercing kisses and subtle snares;
So gallants are conquered, ah, well away!—
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
O happy moths that now flit and hover
From the blossom of white to the blossom of red,
Take heed, for I was a lordly lover
Till the little day of my life had sped;
As straight as a pine-tree, a golden head,
And eyes as blue as an austral bay.
Ladies, when loosing your evening array,
Reflect, had you lived in my years, my prayers
Might have won you from weakly lovers away—
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
Through the song of the thrush and the pipe of the plover
Sweet voices come down through the binding lead;
O queens that every age must discover
For men, that man's delight may be fed;
Oh, sister queens to the queens I wed.
For the space of a year, a month, a day,
No thirst but mine could your thirst allay;
And oh, for an hour of life, my dears,
To kiss you, to laugh at your lovers' dismay—
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
ENVOI
Prince was I ever of festival gay,
And time never silvered my locks with gray;
The love of your lovers is as hope that despairs,
So think of me sometimes, dear ladies, I pray—
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
"It is like all your poetry—merely meretricious glitter; there is no heart in it. That a man should like to have a nice mistress, a girl he is really fond of, is simple enough, but lamentation over the limbo of unborn loveliness is, to my mind, sheer nonsense."
Mike laughed.
"Of course it is silly, but I cannot alter it; it is the sex and not any individual woman that attracts me. I enter a ball-room and I see one, one whom I have never seen before, and I say, 'It is she whom I have sought, I can love her.' I am always disappointed, but hope is born again in every fresh face. Women are so common when they have loved you."
Startled by his words, Mike strove to measure the thought.
"I can see nothing interesting in the fact that it is natural to you to behave badly to every woman who gives you a chance of deceiving her. That's what it amounts to. At the end of a week you'll tire of this new girl as you did of the others. I think it a great shame. It isn't gentlemanly."