Do What You Will

‘The best, you left with me!’

That part I loved in you

Is with me still,

And dream-sleeps in my memory -

Do what you will.

 

Nor will your storms and tempests

In their shallow pique

Drive it away.

Your moods and clamours melt

At my disarray.

 

To mutter at the distances

Long laid between us;

With sword and quill;

You cut me at the quick,

I score your spill.

 

‘Til you do leave, have left,

Left me with this,

One battered heart;

I stroke and touch at will

Your better part.

 

While you play now at roaming

To mourn black birth,

In some deep glooming

At the dark side of the earth.

 

David Lewis Paget