The Danger of Writing Defiant Verse [Russian translation]

And now I have another lad!

No longer need you tell

How all my nights are slow and sad

For loving you too well.

His ways are not your wicked ways,

He's not the like of you.

He treads his path of reckoned days,

A sober man, and true.

They'll never see him in the town,

Another on his knee.

He'd cut his laden orchards down,

If that would pleasure me.

He'd give his blood to paint my lips

If I should wish them red.

He prays to touch my finger-tips

Or stroke my prideful head.

He never weaves a glinting lie,

Or brags the hearts he'll keep.

I have forgotten how to sigh—

Remembered how to sleep.

He's none to kiss away my mind—

A slower way is his.

Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find

A silly lot he is.

• Artist:Dorothy Parker