ONE RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES

When I am in hell or some such place,

A-groaning over my sorry case,

What will those seven women say to me

Who, when I coaxed them, answered “Aye” to me?

“I did not understand your sign!”

Will be the words of Caroline;

While Jane will cry, “If I'd had proof of you,

I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!”

“I wo n't reproach: it was to be!”

Will dryly murmur Cicely;

And Rosa: “I feel no hostility,

For I must own I lent facility.”

Lizzy says: “Sharp was my regret,

And sometimes it is now! But yet

I joy that, though it brought notoriousness,

I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!”

Says Patience: “Why are we apart?

Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!

A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,

Was worth the ache of days undutiful.”

And Anne cries: “O the time was fair,

So wherefore should you burn down there?

There is a deed under the sun, my Love,

And that was ours. What's done is done, my Love.

These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me

With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!”