Lady Mantha

Three times was I a fool for love:
For a boy, a man, and a teen.
As a girl, as a woman, and in-between
A fool, a fool, a fool I was for love.
     Three times blessed, three times cursed,
     All before my thirty-first.

First a lad with an open face
Bade me love, and my heart did race;
His heart like a cloud that shifts and strays
Blew me about, and then blew me away.
     I was a fool, and I would not see
     A boy is a boy, and ever shall be.

Then a teen, or two, or ten
Bade me love them as I was then,
Young and lovely, but my heart was fickle:
Love was a game of slap and tickle.
     I was a fool who played gaily
     Thinking my heart would ever be free.

At last a man, made dark and tall,
Stalked straight to my soul
And bade me stand by both altar and cradle,
And stoop and stir my heart with a ladle.
     And I a fool, a fool, a fool so free
     Gave love, and give, most solemnly.