How can a woman tell when love is gone   From love that merely sleeps but deep inside   Has still the root the stem and flower grow on   And so dreams not to die but sleeps to hide   Perhaps when the clouds drifting by make more noise   Than amorous whispers you aimlessly breathe   And croakings of paddocks speak with greater poise   Than lilypad speeches with nothing beneath   And so I’ll confess what I know to be true   That bullfrogs have more eloquence than do you   When days are longer than they used to be   And nights are maddening eternity   With only forced sighs to interrupt   The same repose your lips would once corrupt   I’ll steal me away so your soul shall not wake   Though more than my absence to rouse it would take   Across from the meadow and down to the pond   To sink myself up to the waist then beyond   For water knows better in love what to do   And plays with its prey with more passion than you   In dreaming one may oft’ release his grasp   On what to conscious minds is naught but clear   That once the time of questioning is near   Chance there is none to hide the fatal asp   Who follows me silently onto the shore   Where I learn to cherish my new solitude   And feel with precision what ere had been rude   Yes I shall return to thy bed nevermore   Born was I with one heart I ask not for two   When rushes and lilies press nearer than you