Desdemona's Lament Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

If to be true, love must be an ever-fixed mark
Which stands unmoving through the fiercest storm,
Then the love my Moor lord bore me through the dark
Was not the Sailors' Star, but instead a fleeting meteor.
If the words he whispered so warmly in my eager ears
Were not the promises of his mind's true intentions,
Then the love I trothed to bear him through the years
Was not a woman's oath, but a silly girl's invention.
If Fate had meant me for my mother's luck in marriage,
I would to my husband have paid proper reverence.
But since Doom so soon came courting me in his gilded carriage
I offered myself as passively as a lamb to his cool deliverance.
If the Moor had loved himself as much I loved him
We could have lived and loved until our sight turned dim.