poem: To Marguerite by Ellis Parker Butler
So great my debt to thee, I know my life
Is all too short to pay the least I owe,
And though I live it all in that sweet strife,
Still shall I be insolvent when I go.
Bid, then, thy Bailiff Cupid come to me
And bind and lead me wheresoe’er thou art,
And let me live in sweet captivity
Within the debtor’s prison of thy heart.poem by Ellis Parker Butler
poem: To May by Ellis Parker Butler
I have no heart to write verses to May;
I have no heart—yet I’m cheerful today;
I have no heart—she has won mine away
So—I have no heart to write verses to May.poem by Ellis Parker Butler
poem: To Phyllis And May by Ellis Parker Butler
O! fair, sweet Phyllis and sweet, fair May,
Which of you carried my heart away?
Who has my heart? I would like to know
Which was the guilty one of the two,
But I only know it was filched one day
By fair, sweet Phyllis, or sweet, fair May.poem by Ellis Parker Butler
poem: Trespassers by Ellis Parker Butler
When Love and I drew softly nigh
And gazed in modest Chloe’s eye
We saw reflected there in part
The lovely mansion of her heart,
A sight so fair that, quite bereft
Of sense and shame, we had but left
One wish, that we by foul or fair
Might enter in and tarry there.
But when, with vagabondish art,
We nearer crept to Chloe’s heart
That we might steal therein, we found
Her heart with barbed wires enwound;
And crawling through those cruel rings
My garments caught, Love caught his wings.
And though we now would fain depart
We twain are snared, outside her heart.poem by Ellis Parker Butler
poem: Valentine To The Girl In Black by Ellis Parker Butler
In hand I take this pen of mine
To write you, sweet, a valentine;
I’d take your dainty hand instead,
But—you’re a drawing—I am wed—
And that is why, you understand,
I only take my pen in hand.poem by Ellis Parker Butler