To Marguerite in  General   

So great my debt to thee, I know my life
Is all too short to pay the least I owe,
And though I live it all in that sweet strife,
Still shall I be insolvent when I go.
Bid, then, thy Bailiff Cupid come to me
And bind and lead me wheresoe’er thou art,
And let me live in sweet captivity
Within the debtor’s prison of thy heart.

By Ellis Parker Butler

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Other poems by Ellis Parker Butler:

• A Culinary Puzzle
• A Lost Angel
• A Minute
• A Pastoral
• A Question
• A Satisfactory Reform
• A Scotchman Whose Name Was Isbister
• A St. Valentine’s Day Tragedy
• An Old-Fashioned Garden
• Anticipation
• At Variance
• Bird Nesting
• Circumstantial Evidence
• Cupid Caught Napping
• Djolan
• Golden Silence
• Good - Better - Best
• How’d You Like It?
• Immortality
• Judgment Day
• Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious
• Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; III: On Laziness
• Mary Had A Little Frog
• Merry Christmas And Happy New Year!
• Millennium
• Mouths Of Hippopotami And Some Recent Novels
• Night In The City
• No Beer, No Work
• October
• Outbid
• Partners
• Reasonable Interest
• Ridden Down
• Says Mister Doojabs
• Song For Heroes
• Speaking Of Operations
• The Ballad Of A Bachelor
• The Ballade Of The Automobile
• The Charge of the Second Iowa Cavalry
• The Daughter Of The Year
• The Final Tax
• The Golf Walk
• The Hunter
• The Poor Boy’s Christmas
• The Rich Boy’s Christmas
• The Romance Of Patrolman Casey
• The Sheep
• The Tearful Tale Of Captain Dan
• The Twenty Hoss-Power Shay
• The Water Nymphs
• The Whale
• The Wood Nymph
• To Jessica, Gone Back To The City
• To Kate. (In Lieu Of A Valentine)
• To Marguerite
• To May
• To Phyllis And May
• Valentine To The Girl In Black
• Western
• When Ida Puts Her Armor On
• Why I Went To The Foot
• Why Washington Retreated
• Womanly Qualms
• Would You Believe It?