Page:In Other Words (1912).djvu/99

From an Awningless Sanctum

Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade?
Milton.

Dear Amaryllis (you mentioned in “Lycidas”),
 I’m no philanderer, truly I’m not,
But in this office it’s sticky and viscid as
 Crab-apple jelly and ten times as hot.

Sternly forbidding, austere, puritanical,
 That is my nature, unardent, severe;
Yet, though the bulk of my verse is mechanical.
 This, Amaryllis, is warmly sincere.

Dear Amaryllis, I hereby import with you:
 ’Ryllie, wo wohnst du, proverbial maid?
Tell me, for, oh, I am anxious to sport with you,
 If, Amaryllis, you’ll furnish the shade,