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.