I never said I loved you, John:

Why will you tease me day by day,

And wax a weariness to think upon

With always "do" and "pray"?

You know I never loved you, John: No fault of mine made me your toast:

Why will you haunt me with a face as wan

AS shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take

Pity upon you, if you'd ask:

And pray don't remain single for my sake

Who can't perform the task

I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;

But then you're mad to take offence

That don't give you what I have not got:

Use your common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:

Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:

I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns

Than answer "yes" to you.

Let's mar our pleasant days no more,

Song-birds of passage, days of youth:

Catch at today, forget the days before:

I'll wink at your untruth.

Let us strike hands as hearty friends;

No more, no less, and friendship's good:

Only don't keep in view ulterior ends,

And points not understood

In open treaty. Rise above

Quibbles and shuffling off and on:

Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,-

No Thank you, John

Something this foggy day, a something which

Is neither of this fog nor today,

Has set me dreaming of the winds that play

Past certain cliffs, along one certian beach,

And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray:

So out of reach while so far away,

So out of reach while quite within my reach,

As out of reach as India or Cathay!

I am sick of where I am and where I am not,

I am sick of foresight and of memory,

I am sick of all I have and all I see,

I am sick of self, and there is nothing new;

Oh weary impatient patience of my lot!

Thus with myslef: how fares it, Friends, with you?

When I was dead, my spirit turned

To seek the much-frequented house:

I passed the door, and saw my friends

Feasting beneath green orange boughs;

From hand to hand they pushed the wine,

They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;

They sang, they jested, and they laughed

For each was loved of each.

I lisitened to their honest chat:

Said one: "To-morrow we shall be

Plod plod along the featureless sands,

And coasting miles and miles of sea."

Said one: "Before the turn of tide

We will achieve the eyrie-seat."

Said one: "To-morrow shall be like

To-day, but much more sweet."

"To-morrow, said they, strong with hope,

And dwelt upon the pleasant way:

"To-morrow," cried they, one and all,

While no one spoke of yesterday.

Their life stood full at blessed noon;

I, only I, had passed away:

"To-morrow and to-day," they cried;

I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast

No chill across the table-cloth;

I, all forgotten, shivered, sad

To stay, and yet to part how loth:

I passed from the familiar room,

I who from love had passed away,

Like the remembrance of a guest

That tarrieth but a day.

Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold!

With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes:

Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise;

This was the promise of the days of old!

Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould,

Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies:

We hoped for better things as years would rise,

But it is over as a tale once told.

All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore,

All lost the present and the future time,

All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:

So lost till death shut-to the opened door,

So lost from chime to everlasting chime,

So cold and lost for ever evermore.

One face looks out from all his canvases,

One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans;

We found her hidden just behind those screens,

That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

A queen in opal or in ruby dress,

A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,

A saint, an angel;-every canvas means

The same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night,

And she with true kind eyes looks back on him

Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:

Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;

Not as she is, but ws when hope shone bright;

Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree

And wore them all that evening in my hair:

Then in due season when I went to see

I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

As I had come I went the selfsame track:

My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass

So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled intrudging by,

Their heaped-up basket teazed me like jeer;

Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the  sunset sky,

Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

A stronger hand than hers helped it along;

A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool

More sweet to me than song

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

Than apples with their green leaves piled above?

I counted rosiest apples on earth 

Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk 

Laughing and listening in this very lane:

To think that by this way we used to walk 

We shall not walk again!

I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos

And groups; the lastest said the night grew chill,

And hastened: but loitered, while the dews

Fell fast I loitered still.

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:

Perhaps some day, who knows?

But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows,

And you're too curious: fie!

You want to hear it? well:

Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:

Suppose there is no secret after all,

But only just my fun.

Today's nipping day, a biting day;

In which one wants a shawl,

A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:

I cannot ope to every one who taps,

and let the draughts come whistling thro' my hall;

Come bounding and surrounding me,

Come buffeting, astounding me,

Nipping and clipping thro' my wraps and all.

I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows

His nose to Russian snows

To be pecked at by every wind that blows?

You would not peck? I thank you for good will,

Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust

March with its peck of dust,

Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, 

Nor even May, whose flowers

One frost may wither thro' the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,

When drowsy birds sing less and less,

And golden fruit is ripening to excess,

If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,

And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,

Perhaps my secret I may say,

Or you may guess.

Promise me no promises,

So will I not promise you:

Keep we both our liberties,

Never false and never true:

Let us hold the die uncast,

Free to come as free to go:

For I cannot know your past,

And of mine what can you know?

You, so warm, may once have been 

Warmer towards another one:

I, so cold, may once have seen

Sunlight, once have felt the sun:

Who shall show us if it was 

Thus indeed in time of old?

Fades the image from the glass,

And the fortune is not told.

If you promised, you might grieve

For lost liberty again:

If I promised, I believe 

I should fret to break the chain.

Let us be the friends we were,

Nothing more but nothing less:

Many thrive on frugal fare

Who would perish of excess.