If we are crickets, still our breasts Contain for us things real enough. The gods may laugh, their interests Are what? I wonder--not the love Such as we knew. To be a god Through love is what I hoped, and rise Above the level of the clod. They said it can't be, who are wise, That's not the way to win the prize: Or if it be, I don't know how; Or you are not the one with whom I might have won it. Well, my brow Is turned into a whitened tomb With all uncleanness in it; dreams Rotting away with hopes as fair... To me, the liver, nothing seems Won that is lost. I can't invert, Sophisticate the facts, or swear My evil good. A hurt's a hurt, A loss a loss, a scar a scar, A spirit frustrate is inert. To stretch your hands toward a star And lose the star, or have it die To ashes like a rocket, alters The aspect of your being's sky. You've learned no praise from earthly psalters Can win the star, or else you've learned The star you touched was quickly turned To ashes while it burned. Hell! Let us face it. Here it is We had some walks, some precious talks, Some hours of paradise and bliss. Our blossom opened, we inhaled All of its fragrance, now I scowl Because our wonder blossom paled For lack of water in the bowl Tipped over by the alley-cat, Or what not, change, distrust or fear; Your pride, your will, a hovering gnat I struck at striking you, a blear Of eyes a moment, making blind My vision, yours.... Or there's the age, The age is frightful to my mind, Nothing to do but stand it--well I sit here and say "hell." For it's really hell to have a will, It's hell to hope and to believe, That good can swallow up the ill, That gods are working, will achieve. They may be, yet they disregard Our cricket feelings, so we shrill Sonnets and elegies round the yard... Let's talk a bit of chlorophyll: The sun was useless for our life, No wine, no beef, no watercress Until this chlorophyll grew rife Millions of years since, more or less. And if no wine or beef, no love, No pulp, no paper, nigrosine, No letters which are made thereof. Think! All we found and lost has been Through chlorophyll. And just suppose Nature should lose the secret power For making chlorophyll, the rose We cherished would not come to flower. No other man and woman more Would burn their letters grieving--yet We may be rising, for who knows There may be something vastly better Than love to flame and flay and fret, And hate this letter and that letter, Once rid of chlorophyll, in case A subtler substance could be given To this poor globe out of heaven-- We are a weak, if growing race!