Les plus lus ▸
Craig Rozniecki
Her eyes seemed so honest,
Her voice sincere,
Her compliments genuine,
I’ve been fooled again,
Her words without hesitation,
Flirting constant,
Smile glowing,
Fooled once again,
Her laughter consistent,
Curiosity displayed,
Emotions exerted,
The fool I played,
Her sincere voice goes silent,
Her smile is no more,
Flirting non-existent,
I’ve been fooled again,
The lips so often frame a smile
While the eyes in salt tears swim
And heart, repellent cup of bile,
Is filled to kiss the brim.
Oft firm and stern we find a face,
Devoid of outward sign,
A mask before the dwelling place
Of happiness divine.
No venomous cobra's stab e'er stung,
Like nectared lies on a false friend's tongue.
Better by far the deadliest foe
Who does not fail to let you know
He is your foe, nor does it smart
As badly, when he rends your heart.
The white men played all sorts of jokes on me.
They took big fish off my hook
And put little ones on, while I was away
Getting a stringer, and made me believe
I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught.
When Burr Robbins circus came to town
They got the ring master to let a tame leopard
Into the ring, and made me believe
I was whipping a wild beast like Samson
When I, for an offer of fifty dollars,
Dragged him out to his cage.
One time I entered my blacksmith shop
And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling
Across the floor, as if alive—
Walter Simmons had put a magnet
Under the barrel of water.
I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,
Born in a cottage near the grist-mill,
Reared in the mansion there on the hill,
With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate.
How proud my mother was of the mansion
How proud of father’s rise in the world!
And how my father loved and watched us,
And guarded our happiness.
But I believe the house was a curse,
For father’s fortune was little beside it;
And when my husband found he had married
A girl who was really poor,
He taunted me with the spires,
And called the house a fraud on the world,
A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes
Of a dowry not to be had;
My Love is male and proper-man
And what he'd have he'd get by chase.
So I must cheat as women can
And keep my love from off my face.
'Tis folly to my dawning, thrifty thought
That I must run, who in the end am caught.
Because the moonlight deceives
Therefore I love it.