Poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Amor Umbratilis

  A gift of Silence, sweet!
    Who may not ever hear:
  To lay down at your unobservant feet,
    Is all the gift I bear.

  I have no songs to sing,
    That you should heed or know:
  I have no lilies, in full hands, to fling
    Across the path you go.

  I cast my flowers away,
    Blossoms unmeet for you!
  The garland I have gathered in my day:
    My rosemary and rue.

  I watch you pass and pass,
    Serene and cold: I lay
  My lips upon your trodden, daisied grass,
    And turn my life away.

  Yea, for I cast you, sweet!
    This one gift, you shall take:
  Like ointment, on your unobservant feet,
    My silence, for your sake.

1. To a Lady Asking Foolish Questions
2. Yvonne of Brittany
3. Villanelle of Sunset
4. The Dead Child
5. Ad Manus Puellae

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