For Myself

What’s in this grave is worth your tear;

There’s more than the eye can see;

Folly and Pride and Love lie here

Buried alive with me.

All the Dead

Priest and layman, virgin, strumpet,

Good and ill commingled sleep,

Waiting till the dreadful trumpet

Separates the wolves and sheep.

For Love’s Sake

(For Ruth Marie)

Oh, for a little while be kind to me

Who stand in such imperious need of you,

And for a fitful space let my head lie

Happily on your passion’s frigid breast.

Although yourself no more resigned to me

Than on all bitter yesterdays I knew,

This half a loaf from sumptuous crumbs your shy

Reneging hand lets fall shall make me blest.

The sturdy homage of a love that throws

Its strength about you, dawn and dusk, at bed

And board, is not for scorn. When all is said

With final amen certitude, who knows

But Dives found a matchless fragrance fled

When Lazarus no longer shocked his nose?