Clouds Without Water

Vili Why did you play with such ungracious folly ? Because our passion is too bitter-sweet? Because the acute and maddening melancholy Is stronger than the rapture when we meet? Because you weep beyond your own control Like to one wounded bleeding inwardly ? Because you are not the mistress of your soul Mighty enough to master fate and me? It cuts me to the heart to see the brine Not falling from your bad bewitching eyes, To feel you are weeping in the central shrine Whose woes the peristyle may not surprise, I want to treat you as a lover rather ; You make me lecture to you like a father! IX Write in your heart, dear maid, that Hitherto The Lord hath helped us. Give Him duly praise (As I have given Him for making you). Pray not, ask not for wealth and length of days Or even for wisdom, lest one day you find That you are saddled with some thousand grooms (You bear the case of Solomon in mind!) All in frock-coats and helmeted (with plumes) — A scarcely pleasant prospect! Just give thanks O Lord, for what we have received, Amen! And then if Jordan overflows his banks, Our vines increase, and one seed turns to ten, Keep on thanksgiving! Even if things go wrong, Howls are less pleasant to the ear than song.