EBBING:

Gone the robe of youth´s floral passion,

Now clad in aged nakedness, stripped bare.

Don´t ask me here, nor now, nor ever,

Don´t ask me again anywhere, if I love you.

For in my ageing, I have no love to spare.

I gave it in dollops, in heaps & waves,

And you took it in armfuls, soulfuls, all of it,

Now it´s used up, a trickle, a flickering candle, a shadow,

My capacity for love is small, empty, no longer there,

A vacuous vessel, contents ebbing, leaving me bare.