Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MARISE KISSING HER SHOULDERS IT is Easter morning, And my beloved, with a quaint belated zeal, Has fled the city To hunt for the Garden of Gethsemane. I woke an hour since, And sat up in my bed, Which last year I had the artisans And drapers fashion as a water-lily. The pillows are in green chenille, And the sheets are great wisps of olive satin, Then comes a warmth of velvet ivy To crush the cold, And beneath everything I lie in cream white. I sat up the hour since, And mused for a moment On the ashes in my hearth, Wishing they were mauve instead of grey— Death in mauve would be so much nicer— And then I performed my usual morning office— The kissing of shoulders! I was generous this morning— I kissed the right shoulder first, Although I am secretly in love With the left. Then it was that I realized The beloved was seeking The Garden of Gethsemane, And I was alone. I must have a companionless day, A waste, lonely day indoors, For manifestly I could not venture forth Into Fifth Avenue alone. To-day it would be unpleasantly disturbed With clerks and sempstresses— To remind one of one's bills— And well-to-do vulgar folk, The women frantically eager To flaunt their bad taste in dress. I love Fifth Avenue, But I am a cat, And so to-day I could not endure The alien contacts At my elbow of the crowds that pass. Obviously, then, I must remain within. At first I seemed to have no resources, But I looked at my bed, And adored it, And my wounded self-esteem was soothed. I bade the discords Of awkward solitariness A curt farewell. It came to me that it was imperative That I should spend the day Free of the slavery of thinking. I have never been for...