If I could lift
    My heart but high enough
    My heart could fill with love:

But ah, my heart
    Too still and heavy stays
    Too brimming with old days.
 

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident
they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words;

if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire
only the tribute of another’s cry; if they employ each other

as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel—
then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread,

no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation,
no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated

apparition of a body floating face-down at the pond’s edge

We are even more modern
we are free
not to know
pining pining
til the trees are in
their autumn beauty
who knows why
we are free
an LP of poetry
left on in the apartment
while I walk my love
to the subway
she turns to gold
in the light banking off
the ball-fields
and to have to think
of that small
pale body asleep
I return I take the stairs
3 at a time
and now my heart is sore

I cut myself upon the thought of you
And yet I come back to it again and again,
A kind of fury makes me want to draw you out
From the dimness of the present
And set you sharply above me in a wheel of roses.
Then, going obviously to inhale their fragrance,
I touch the blade of you and cling upon it,
And only when the blood runs out across my fingers
Am I at all satisfied.

If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day,
And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o’er and o’er;
I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray,
And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore.

If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.

If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean’s moan!

^{translated by Muna Lee}

   I grew
   Only for you.
Cut the acacia boughs that demand
Only destruction at your hand!

   My blossom blew
   Only for you.
Uproot me—in its natal hour
My lily doubted were it candle or flower.

   My waters blue
   Flow for you.
Drink me—never crystal knows
So pure a tide as in this channel flows.

   Wings I knew
   Only for you.
Pursue me! (Quivering firefly,
Veil your flame from every eye!)

I shall suffer for you.
Blessed be the evil that your love will do!
Blessed be the blade, the net I shall feel!
Blessed be thirst and steel!

My heart’s blood will flow
That my love you may know.
What fairer gem, what rarer jewel could be found
Than this offering of a scarlet wound?

Instead of diadems in my hair,
Seven long thorns I shall wear.
Instead of ear-rings I shall don
Two burning coals of vermilion.

When you see me suffering
You will hear my laughter ring.
And you will weep and pity me:
Then more than ever mine you will be.

El fuerte lazo 

              Crecí
              Para tí.
        Tálame. Mi acacia
Implora a tus manos su golpe de gracia.

              Florí
              Para tí.
        Córtame. Mi lirio
Al nacer dudaba ser flor o ser cirio.

              Fluí
              Para tí.
        Bébeme. El cristal
Envidia lo claro de mi manantial.

              Alas dí
              Por tí.
        Cázame. Falena,
Rodeo tu llama de impaciencia llena.

              Por tí sufriré.
¡Bendito sea el daño que tu amor me dé!
¡Bendita sea el hacha, bendita la red,
Y loadas sean tijeras y sed!

              Sangre del costado
              Manaré, mi amado.
¿Qué broche más bello, qué joya más grata,
Que por tí una llaga color escarlata?

En vez de abalorios para mis cabellos
Siete espinas largas hundiré entre ellos.
Y en vez de zarcillos pondré en mis orejas,
Como dos rubíes dos ascuas bermejas.

              Me verás reír
              Viéndome sufrir.

              Y tú llorarás.
Y entonces... ¡más mío que nunca serás!