Correspondence

I wrote her a letter, she wrote me three,

And the cadence was that of a leafing tree.

I wrote her four letters, she wrote me none,

And the scuffled leaves lay dim and dun.

I broke my pen and wrote no more,

Lacking the postman's knock at the door.

I scored that year with a mark of chalk:

Second-hand compliments, windy talk,

Pleasant platitudes hung on a nail

Useful to plump an uneven sale.

It will all come out in the wash, they say,

And to-morrow but duplicates yesterday.
Even great Pharaoh takes no more room

Than his huddled bones, though the spacious gloom

Containing them goes by his stately name.

Dead leaves, dead kings, it is much the same.

Cocks crow daily on hills of dung,

And no song is the first, nor the last, that's sung.