Poem by Henry Cuyler Bunner

Janiveer in March

I would not have you so kindly,
Thus early in friendship’s year—
A little too gently, blindly,
You let me near.

So long as my voice is duly
Calm as a friend’s should be,
In my eyes the hunger unruly
You will not see.

The eyes that you lift so brightly,
Frankly to welcome mine —
You bend them again as lightly
And note no sign.

I had rather your pale cheek reddened
With the flush of an angry pride:
That a look with disliking deadened
My look defied;

If so in the spring’s full season
Your glance should soften and fall,
When, reckless with Love’s unreason,
I tell you all.

1. For an Old Poet
2. Farewell to Salvini
3. Shriven
4. Deaf
5. The Future of the Classics

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