For Daughters of Magdalen
Ours is the ancient story:
Delicate flowers of sin,
Lilies, arrayed in glory,
That would not toil nor spin.
This is poem is in the public domain.
Your love to me was like an unread book,
Bright-backed, with smooth white pages yet unslit;
Fondly as a lover, foolishly, I took
It from its shelf one day and opened it.
Here shall I read, I thought, beauty and grace,
The soul’s most high and awful poetry;—
Alas for lovers and the faith they place
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.