Love in Arcady
What to us is time or space,
Hours of absence, days of grace;
As we rule and reign alone
In a kingdom of our own?
Love like ours is up to date,
Sneers at fortune, conquers Fate;
Makes the loves of early times
Look like three bright, shiny dimes.
Couldn’t we give cards and spades
To historic lovers’ shades!
Easily our love can beat
That of Faust and Marguerite.
Heloise and Abelard
Stooped to tricks that we’d discard;
Orpheus and Eurydice
Only knew a simple way;
Launcelot and Guinevere
Wondering would our love-songs hear,
And a few things we might show
Juliet and Romeo.
Hero we’d give pointers to,
Teach Leander how to woo.
I could coach Semiramis,
Trojan Helen teach to kiss.
You’d teach Dante and Petrarch,
Distance Cleopatra’s Mark.
Oh, the loves of bygone days
Were not up to modern ways!