For pity, not for love
(Because you loved me so)
With undesirous lips
I kissed you long ago.
You were not over-fair;
And surely it is strange
Your memory should return,
Touched with this fairer change.
For now at whiles I meet
In eves of weariness
Your sweetly watchful eyes
That know my still distress;
And turn to feel your lips
Laid soothly on my hair-
Your half-forgotten lips,
Grown strangely dear and fair.
Who knows?-if you should come
This shifting heart to prove,
Yours might the pity be,
And mine the pitied love.
(Clark Ashton Smith)
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