My love, you destroy me, you rend,
You tear me apart.
You are a wild swan I have caught
And housed in my heart.
My sister, my love, I am shattered,
Broken, dismayed.
The live wings, the wild wings are beating,
They make me afraid.
Fold your wings, brood like a dove,
Be a dove I can cherish
More calmly, my dear, my tempestuous love,
Or I perish.
From On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923) by Elsa Gidlow. This poem is in the public domain.
He will love you presently
If you be the way you be.
Send your heart a-skittering.
He will stoop, and lift the thing.
Be your dreams as thread, to tease
Into patterns he shall please.
Let him see your passion is
Ever tenderer than his....
Go and bless your star above,
Thus are you, and thus is Love.
He will leave you white with woe,
If you go the way you go.
If your dreams were thread to weave,
He will pluck them from his sleeve.
If your heart had come to rest,
He will flick it from his breast.
Tender though the love he bore,
You had loved a little more....
Lady, go and curse your star,
Thus Love is, and thus you are.
From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.