’Back. And I’ll have him back to me,’ she muttered, ’This lovesick boy of twenty, green as grass, Has made me wonder if my brains are buttered, He, and his lockets, and his love, the ass. I don’t know why he comes. Alas! alas! God knows I want no love; but every sun I bolt my doors on some poor loving one. It breaks my heart to turn them out of doors, I hear them crying to me in the rain; One, with a white face, curses, one implores, "Anna, for God’s sake, let me in again, Anna, belov’d, I cannot bear the pain." Like hoovey sheep bleating outside a fold "Anna, belov’d, I’m in the wind and cold." I want no men. I’m weary to the soul Of men like moths about a candle flame, Of men like flies about a sugar bowl, Acting alike, and all wanting the same, My dreamed-of swirl of passion never came, No man has given me the love I dreamed, But in the best of each one something gleamed. If my dear darling were alive, but he... He was the same; he didn’t understand. The eyes of that dead child are haunting me, I only turned the blanket with my hand. It didn’t hurt, he died as I had planned. A little skinny creature, weak and red; It looked so peaceful after it was dead. I have been all alone, in spite of all. Never a light to help me place my feet: I have had many a pain and many a fall. Life’s a long headache in a noisy street, Love at the budding looks so very sweet, Men put such bright disguises on their lust, And then it all goes crumble into dust. Jimmy the same, dear, lovely Jimmy, too, He goes the self-same way the others went: I shall bring sorrow to those eyes of blue. He asks the love I’m sure I never meant. Am I to blame? And all his money spent! Men make this shutting doors such cruel pain. O, Ern, I want you in my life again.’ On Sunday afternoons the lovers walk Arm within arm, dressed in their Sunday best, The man with the blue necktie sucks a stalk, The woman answers when she is addressed. On quiet country stiles they sit to rest, And after fifty years of wear and tear They think how beautiful their courtships were. Jimmy and Anna met to walk together The Sunday after Shepherd Ern returned; And Anna’s hat was lovely with a feather Bought and dyed blue with money Jimmy earned. They walked towards Callows Farm, and Anna yearned: ’Dear boy,’ she said, ’This road is dull to-day, Suppose we turn and walk the other way.’ They turned, she sighed. ’What makes you sigh?’ he asked. ’Thinking,’ she said, ’thinking and grieving, too. Perhaps some wicked woman will come masked Into your life, my dear, to ruin you. And trusting every woman as you do It might mean death to love and be deceived; You’d take it hard, I thought, and so I grieved.’