To Myrtilla

Twelve fleeting years ago, my Myrt,
(Eheu fugaces! maybe more)
I wrote of the directoire skirt
You wore.

Ten years ago, Myrtilla mine,
The hobble skirt engaged my pen.
That was, I calculate, in Nine-
Teen Ten.

The polo coat, the feathered lid,
The phony furs of yesterfall,
The current shoe—I tried to kid
Them all.

Vain every vitriolic bit,
Silly all my sulphuric song.
Rube Goldberg said a bookful; it
‘S all wrong.

Bitter the words I used to fling,
But you, despite my angriest Note,
Were never swayed by anything
I wrote.

So I surrender. I am beat.
And, though the admission rather girds,
In any garb you’re just too sweet
For words.