Scribner’s Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
VAIN EXCUSE
Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate,
And when he enters let him be at home.
Think of the roads that he has had to roam,
Think of the years that he has had to wait.
But if I let Love in I shall be late.
Another has come first, there is no room;
And I am busy at the thoughtful loom;
Let Love be patient, the importunate.
O Life, be idle, and let Love come in,
And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin.
But Love himself is idle with his song.
Let Love come last, and then may Love last long.
Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last;
Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed.
The Trend Walter Conrad Arensberg
SONNET XXX
You mean, my friend, you do not greatly care
For these harsh portraits I have lately done?
You like my old style better,—like the rare
Enamelled softness of that princess-one?
True, this old woman, with the sunken throat
Painted like cordage, is not sweet to view.
Perhaps the blear whites of her eyes connote
No element of loveliness to you.
Ah yes, we all must love the sapphire lake,
The rainbow, and the rose,—but these alone?
Or is there some slight wonder where pines shake
On bare-ribbed mountain-peaks of shattered stone?
So these disturb? I fear this is the end
Of days when I shall please your taste, my friend.