XI
Were you a shop-girl and myself a clerk,
Things might be better—we could surely meet
With due umbrellas in the dripping Park
And decorously spoon upon a seat.
This is the penalty one pays for rank
And fortune! Ah, my Lola, I am dying
And mad—or would God play me such a prank
As to dictate such verse while you are crying?
Let me too weep, weep on! weep out my soul,
Weep till the world of sense was wept away
And, dead, I reached you at the glimmering goal
Whither you had outrun me! Weep, I say,
Weep! It is better. Thus one earns a chrism—
Who ever gained one by cheap cynicism?
Things might be better—we could surely meet
With due umbrellas in the dripping Park
And decorously spoon upon a seat.
This is the penalty one pays for rank
And fortune! Ah, my Lola, I am dying
And mad—or would God play me such a prank
As to dictate such verse while you are crying?
Let me too weep, weep on! weep out my soul,
Weep till the world of sense was wept away
And, dead, I reached you at the glimmering goal
Whither you had outrun me! Weep, I say,
Weep! It is better. Thus one earns a chrism—
Who ever gained one by cheap cynicism?
— 45 —
