* * *

When in my arms your slender beauty
Is locked, O you whom I adore,
And from my lips in gusts of rapture
Love's tender murmurs stintless pour,
In silence from my tight embraces
Your supple form you gently free,
And with a skeptic's smile, my dear one,
You mockingly reply to me:
The sad tradition of betrayal
You have remembered all too well;
You listen with a sad indifference,
Not heeding what I have to tell. . . .
I curse the naughty zeal, the cunning,
The hot pursuit after delight
That filled my youth, the assignations,
The garden trysts in the hushed night;
I curse the whispered lovers' discourse,
The magic spells that lay in verse,
The gullible young girls' caresses,
Their tears, their late regrets I curse.