Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae
(I am not as I was under the reign of the good Cynara)

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
   There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
     Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
     And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
     But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
     Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
   Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
     But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
     But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
     Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
     And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
          Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

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Living for a while in the East End of London where his father owned a dry dock, Ernest Dowson fell in love with the daughter of a restaurant keeper. It was a platonic love, and the girl could not understand either Dowson's reticent idealism nor the poem he wrote to her. Its title was a line which Dowson had taken from Horace. This classic of sentimental decadence was wasted on his "Cynarae"; she ran off and married one of her father's waiters. - (Men and Women: The Poetry of Love: American Heritage Press 1970)