You Are Ice And Fire

To Understand Vers Libre, One Must Abandon All Desire To Find In It The Even Rhythm Of Metrical Feet. One Must Allow The Lines To Flow As They Will When Read Aloud By An Intelligent Reader.

In My Stiff, Brocaded Gown. With My Powdered Hair And Jeweled Fan, I Too Am A Rare Pattern.

On The Neck Of The Young Man Sparkles No Gem So Gracious As Enterprise. Youth Condemns; Maturity Condones.

I Ask But One Thing Of You, Only One, That Always You Will Be My Dream Of You; That Never Shall I Wake To Find Untrue All This I Have Believed And Rested On, Forever Vanished, Like A Vision Gone Out Into The Night. Alas, How Few There Are Who Strike In Us A Chord We Knew Existed, But So Seldom Heard Its Tone We Tremble At The Half-forgotten Sound. The World Is Full Of Rude Awakenings And Heaven-born Castles Shattered To The Ground, Yet Still Our Human Longing Vainly Clings To A Belief In Beauty Through All Wrongs. O Stay Your Hand, And Leave My Heart Its Songs!

Not A Softness Anywhere About Me, Only Whalebone And Brocade.