"You will forgive me Sweetheart? 
I love you... 
You are my intensified dream of ages 
Quiet and calm browed... 

You will forgive me? 
The sadness that I cause, 
The aching pain of unfulfilled desire, 
The happiness that may not be ours. 
The long nights of desolation. 
The graying days of loneliness... 
You will forgive them? 

A fighter I! 
Uncouth and huge in the softness of your life 
Out of place... 
My mind forever perplexed with vague visions 
Of a flaunting, flaming death 
In some far colorful land. 
You were content before I came 
Content with your life 
And your flat voiced, quietly egotistical lover. 
You would have gone to him quietly 
No desire or passion -- only -- quietly satisfied 
You would have had an apartment 
Like thousands of other fools. 
You would have borne quiet children 
And after a fashion ... you would have been content. 
Then I came ... a Chimera of pain 
Deep in my eyes 
The smile of a child 
And the mouth of a lover. 
Unkempt, huge and rather whistful -- 
Strange tales and bright ribbons 
Bringing romance into your drab life. 
I would not shatter the soft platitude of your life 
By my passionate desire 
yet I love you! 
You will forgive me? 

         The Saturnine Seaman.

You have come -- a tousel-headed swain 
From the North Seas 
Wild and erratic; 
But your eyes have the wistfulness 
Of calm grey waters. 
And your caresses -- singularly tender for one 
So stalwart -- envelope me in all the rapture 
Of disenthralled passion. 

Because I am slow in giving 
And have not known the ways 
Of gods and seaman 
You must depart 
But come or go-- 
I love you.  

         Mary.