The Sentimentalist

There lies a photograph of you Deep in a box of broken things. This was the face I loved and knew Five years ago, when life had wings;

Five years ago, when through a town Of bright and soft and shadowy bowers We walked and talked and trailed our gown Regardless of the cinctured hours.

The precepts that we held I kept; Proudly my ways with you I went: We lived our dreams while others slept, And did not shrink from sentiment.

Now I go East and you stay West And when between us Europe lies I shall forget what I loved best Away from lips and hands and eyes.

But we were Gods then: we were they Who laughed at fools, believed in friends, And drank to all that golden day Before us, which this poem ends.

DON JUAN IN HELL (from Baudelaire.)

The night Don Juan came to pay his fees To Charon, by the caverned water's shore, A beggar, proud-eyed as Antisthenes, Stretched out his knotted fingers on the oar.

Mournful, with drooping breasts and robes unsewn The shapes of women swayed in ebon skies, Trailing behind him with a restless moan Like cattle herded for a sacrifice.

Here, grinning for his wage, stood Sganarelle, And here Don Luis pointed, bent and dim, To show the dead who lined the holes of Hell, This was that impious son who mocked at him.

The hollow-eyed, the chaste Elvira came, Trembling and veiled, to view her traitor spouse. Was it one last bright smile she thought to claim, Such as made sweet the morning of his vows?

A great stone man rose like a tower on board, Stood at the helm and cleft the flood profound: But the calm hero, leaning on his sword, Gazed back, and would not offer one look round.