The Songs of Bilitis: II. Elegies At Mytilene: Cosmetics

COSMETICS

Everything, my life and all the world., and men, all that is not she, is naught. All that is not she, I give you, passer-by.

Does she know how many tasks I accomplish to be lovely in her eyes, tasks with my coiffure and my paints, my dresses and my perfumes?

Just so long would I tread the mill, or pull the oar or even till the soil, if these would be the price of holding her.

But never let her know these things, oh, guardian Goddesses! The very day she knows that I adore her, she'll seek another woman.