I SHOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN A
                BALLAD WORLD

    I should like to live as a ballad maid
    Who loves, is loved, and dies,
    Or bears four sons as a matron staid
    To her lord's amazed eyes.

    Birth, and youth, and womanhood,
    Ripe lips and golden hair,
    Death and a lover understood,
    And a black silk shroud to wear;

    And all the long years left untold
    The long hours left unsaid,
    While swift, rare moments of life unfold
    Bronze and silver and red.

    I should like to live in a ballad world
    While vivid lips of song
    My leaping, lingering tale unfurled
    Of a fate six stanzas long.