Love
As I walk lost and lonely
I find you, keep you, Never mind you.
If I saunter proud and sprightly,
Kiss me never, Never lightly.
When I droop dark and dully,
Love me, love me, Never stop.
Cat
I have a cat, a cat my own,
No one to make her stop. To live ? to die? what good is that?
My cat's come home again.
I let her in the door so bright,
So gay, so lost, so tempting. What's the use to live or die?
My cat's come home again.
Secret Despair
In those days, I thought that I should never master the magic art of reading, for even the alphabet looked like a company of imps all making faces at one bewildered little girl. Many tears splattered my face before that hidden wisdom suddenly became my own, but as soon as I could read at all, I could read everything.
The majestic language of the Bible in the King James Version, made when English speech was at its richest and most poetic, held me even when it did not tell a story. In childhood, I heard the whole Bible read aloud again and again, and I never tired of it. The elder children had their own book, too, lines left out, but this they would read to themselves downstairs, by the center table lamp, while I watched them with admiration and secret despair.