My spirit sings in tune, and sorrow flies
Away. But, dear, I can not bear your sighs
When on my knees you nestle and you lay
Your tear-wet face upon my shoulder. Nay,
I can not help the pain that fills mine eyes.
So, love, whatever cup of Life you drain
I'll stand for. Send the cashier's check to me.
"Smile" all you want to; smile and smile again.
But as you weigh two hundred pounds, you see
Why, when you cuddle down upon my knee,
It is your size, dear heart, that gives me pain.

A HAND I HELD

The heartless years have many hopes dispelled.
But they have left me one dear night in June.
They've left the still white splendor of the moon.
They've left the mem'ry of a hand I held,
While up thro' all my soul the rapture welled
Of victory. I hear again the croon
Of twilight time, the lullaby that soon
To all the day's glad music shall have swelled.
I hold a hand I never held before,
A hand like which I'll never hold some more.
It was the first time I had ever "called."
'Twas at the club, as we began to leave.
I held five aces, but the dealer balled
The ones that he had planted up his sleeve.

YOUR CHEEK

To feel your hands stray shyly to my head
And flutter down like birds that find their nest,
To see the gentle rise and fall of your dear breast,
To hear again some tender word you said,
To watch the little feet whose dainty tread
Fell light as flowers upon the way they pressed,
To touch again the lips I have caressed--
All these are precious. But your cheek of red
Outlives the mem'ry of all other things.
I'd known you scarce a month, or maybe two;
I had not yet made up my mind to speak,
You trots out Tifny's catalogue of rings;
Says No. 6 (200 yen) will do.
So I remember best of all your cheek.

WITH ALL YOUR FAULTS

You would not stop this side the farthest line
Of Truth, you said, nor hide one little falsity
From my sweet faith that was too kind to see.
You said a keener vision would divine
All failings later, bare each hid design,
Each poor disguise of loving's treachery
That screened its weaknesses from even me.
How oft you said those cherry lips were mine
Alone. The cherries came in little jars,
I learned. Those auburn locks, I found with pain,