Days I enjoy

Days I enjoy are days when nothing happens,

When I have no engagements written on my block,

When no one comes to disturb my inward peace,

When no one comes to take me away from myself

And turn me into a patchwork, a jig-saw puzzle,

A broken mirror that once gave a whole reflection,

Being so contrived that it takes too long a time

To get myself back to myself when they have gone.

The years are too strickly measured, and life too short

For me to afford such bits of myself to my friends.

And what have I to give my friends in the last resort?

An awkwardness, a shyness, and a scrap,

No thing that's truly me, a bootless waste,

A waste of myself and them, for my life is mine

And theirs presumably theirs, and cannot touch.

-- Victoria Sackville-West