I spend the days with my vanity.

Paddy McAloon:

"Name me one little thing, you'll be wanting to keep,
As you give up the ghost as you sink into sleep.
Maybe her face in the morning, maybe his in the evening?
Maybe words never spoken, aren't they the ones worth hearin'?"



Pablo Neruda-

XX

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.



Philip Larkin:

Love, we must part now: do not let it be
Calamitious and bitter. In the past
There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last
Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more eager to be free,
To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
No longer hold them; we are husks, that see
The grain going forward to a different use.

There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.
 

Unhappy Catullus, stop playing the fool,
and let end that which you know leads you to ruin.
Once, bright days shone for you,
when you were often drawn to that girl,
loved as no other will be loved by you.
Then there were many pleasures with her,
that you wanted, and the girl did not mind;
truly the bright days shone for you.
And now she no longer wants you: and you
weak man, should be unwilling to chase what flees,
or else live in misery: be strong-minded, stand firm.
Goodbye girl, now Catullus endures,
he will not search for you, won’t ask for you unwillingly.
Instead you will grieve, when nobody comes calling.
Woe to you, wicked girl, what life is left for you?
Who will submit to you now? Who will see your beauty?
Who now will you love? Whose will they say you’ll be?
Who will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?
But you, Catullus, be resolved and be firm.

Ernest Dowson:

There comes an end to summer,
To spring showers and hoar rime;
His mumming to each mummer
Has somewhere end in time,
And since life ends and laughter,
And leaves fall and tears dry,
Who shall call love immortal,
When all that is must die ?

Nay, sweet, let’s leave unspoken
The vows the fates gainsay,
For all vows made are broken,
We love but while we may.
Let’s kiss when kissing pleases,
And part when kisses pall,
Perchance, this time to-morrow,
We shall not love at all.

You ask my love completest,
As strong next year as now,
The devil take you, sweetest,
Ere I make aught such vow.
Life is a masque that changes,
A fig for constancy!
No love at all were better,
Than love which is not free.
 

Paddy McAloon :

"Desire as a self-figured creature who changes her own mind."