To Myrtilla

Twelve fleeting years ago my Myrt, (Ehu fugaces! maybe more) I wrote of the directoire skirt You wore. Ten years ago, Myrtilla mine, The hobble skirt engaged my pen. That was, I calculate, in Nine- Teen Ten. The polo coat, the feathered lid, The phony furs of yesterfall, The current shoe--I tried to kid Them all. Vain every vitriolic bit, Silly all my sulphuric song. Rube Goldberg said a bookful; it 'S all wrong. Bitter the words I used to fling But you, despite my angriest Note, Were never swayed by anything I wrote. So I surrender. I am beat. And, though the admission rather girds, In any garb you're just to sweet For words.