BALLADE OF NEW PROVERBS

For these the orange, and for those the rind;
starve on the stalk, or grow upon the grain;
the ripest walnut leaves a shell behind;
the crust of sweetness is the mourner's bane;
none eats the lead on which the stone has lain;
we die by poisons of our own invention;
no idler to repent than to refrain;
there is no healing love by first intention.

War and the wilderness are strong to bind;
the softer flesh must learn the sharper chain;
the face of evil does not hurt the blind;
the naked man is not afraid of rain;
pity is water to remembered pain;
the power of evil rests in apprehension;
the wound of pleasure leaves the deepest stain;
there is no healing love by first intention.

The spying lover knows what he will find;
the trodden wheat goes last into the wain;
the careless torture is the most unkind;
only the fool has never need to feign;
the fisher in the dew baits hooks in vain;
we learn the pitfall by the circumvention;
the tree is timber, but the roots remain;
there is no healing lobe by first intention.

The mountain shadow makes a sorry plain;
grief is a text that suffers no revension;
the virgin milk is never drunk again;
there is no healing love by first intention.