Go and get a monk for a lover, And let me quietly sit On this warm stone which the lichens cover. I have had enough of it! Did the high gods carve your polished flanks And make liquid your hazel eyes, That two should stand on a river's banks And offer up the scurvy thanks Of being over wise? Let me alone. I have heard your tale, How Love is this and how Love is that. Is not milk still white in the pail And wine still red in the vat? I would have gathered you moschatel, Wood-spurge, wood-sorrel, wood-saxifrage! When the moon rode forth I'd have taught you to tell Every star in her equipage! Because I'd loved you with satyr passion Were that a reason I should not keep Tenderness in my goat-foot fashion, And watch beside your sleep? The oldest of Centaurs is my brother -- The wild wood-ways are in my blood -- My mother was the great earth-mother -- Yet I can love you as well as another For all my satyrhood! Go find your friend. I have pride of my own, But every noon I'll sit On this warm lichen-covered stone, And perhaps you'll come back to it! Perhaps when they @3talk@1 of Love one day In their high platonic hall, You will curse their chatter and flee away And find your Satyr's grave and say, "His love was best of all!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HIS MOTHER'S SERVICE TO OUR LADY by FRANCOIS VILLON THE SONG OF THE SMOKE by WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS A SONG OF SUN SETTING by JANE BARLOW THE SKY-LINE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON EARLY DAYS IN VERMONT by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY |