August lyrics

When my eyes are weeds,

And my lips are petals, spinning

Down the wind that has beginning

Where the crumpled beeches start

In a fringe of salty reeds;

When my arms are elder-bushes,

And the rangy lilac pushes

Upward, upward through my heart;

Summer, do your worst!

Light your tinsel moon, and call on

Your performing stars to fall on

Headlong through your paper sky;

Nevermore shall I be cursed

By a flushed and amorous slattern,

With her dusty laces' pattern

Trailing, as she straggles by

• Artist:Dorothy Parker