To Lady Jane by Vachel Lindsay
Romance was always young. You come today Just eight years old With marvellous dark hair. Younger than Dante found you When you turned His heart into the way That found the heavenly stair.
Perhaps we must be strangers. I confess My soul this hour is Dante's, And your care Should be for dolls Whose painted hands caress Your marvellous dark hair.
Romance, with moonflower face And morning eyes, And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies The canticles of a coming king unknown, Remember, when you join him On his throne, Even me, your far off troubadour, And wear For me some trifling rose Beneath your veil, Dying a royal death, Happy and pale, Choked by the passion, The wonder and the snare, The glory and despair That still will haunt and own Your marvellous dark hair.
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