I won’t beg for you love: it’s laid
Safely to rest, let the earth settle …
Don’t expect my jealous letters
Pouring in to plague your bride.
But let me, nevertheless, advise you:
Give her my poems to read in bed,
Give her my portraits to keep—it’s wise to
Be kind like that when newly-wed.
For it’s more needful to such geese
To know that they have won completely
Than to have converse light and sweet or
Honeymoons of remembered bliss …
When you have spent your kopeck’s worth
Of happiness with your new friend,
And like a taste that sates the mouth
Your soul has recognized the end—
Don’t come crawling like a whelp
Into my bed of lonliness.
I don’t know you. Nor could I help.
I’m not yet cured of happiness.