FRANK PREWETT
Come girl, and embrace,
And ask no more I wed thee;
Know then you are sweet of face,
Soft-limbed and fashioned lovingly;—
Must you go marketing your charms
In cunning woman-like,
And filled with old wives’ tales’ alarms?
I tell you, girl, come embrace;
What reck we of churchling and priest
With hands on paunch and chubby face;
Behold, we are life’s pitiful least,
And we perish at the first smell
Of death, whither heaves earth
To spurn us cringing into hell.
Come girl, and embrace;
Nay, cry not, poor wretch, nor plead,
But haste, for life strikes a swift pace
And I burn with envious greed:
Know you not, fool, we are the mock,
Of gods, time, clothes, and priests?
But come, there is no time for talk.
I went out into the fields
In my anguish of mind,
And sought comfort of the trees
For they looked to be kind.
‘Alas!’ cried they, ‘who have peace?—
We are prey that is caught,
The sun warms us, the blast chills,
And we understand not.’
On rolled the world with fools’ noise,
But I strode in tears’ wrack;
Would God, fools, I too were fool,
Or had light that I lack.
I held the fields all day,
I, a madman, too;
My spirit called aloud
To sift the false from true.
The troubled sun turned black,
Earth heaved to and fro,
Whene’er I spurned the flowers
Lifting heads to grow.