All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,---
And choose One indulgent
To redness and sweetness:
Or if, with experience of man and of spider,
June use my June-lightning, the strong insect-ridder,
And stop the fresh film-work,---why, June will consider.
A PRETTY WOMAN.
I.
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II.
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III
You like us for a glance, you know---
For a word's sake
Or a sword's sake,
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV.
And in turn we make you ours, we say---
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face
composed of flowers, we say.
V.
All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet---
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!
VI.
But for
loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you
in a mortar---for you could not, Sweet!
VII.
So, we leave the sweet face
fondly there:
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!
VIII.
And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder
That I ponder
A
conclusion? I will try it there.
IX.
As,---why must one, for the love foregone,
Scout mere
liking?
Thunder-striking
Earth,---the heaven, we looked above for, gone!
X.
Why, with beauty, needs there money be,
Love with
liking?
Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee?
XI.
May not
liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
'Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?
XII.
Is the creature too imperfect,
Would you mend it
And so end it?
Since not all
addition perfects aye!
XIII.
Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
Just perfection---
Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?
XIV.
Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
Into tinder,
And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?
XV.
Or else kiss away one's soul on her?
Your love-fancies!
---A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!
XVI.
Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,---
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose:
XVII.
Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,
Precious metals
Ape the petals,---
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!
XVIII.
Then how grace a rose? I know a way!
Leave it, rather.
Must you gather?
Smell, kiss, wear it---at last, throw away!
RESPECTABILITY.
I.
Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to
proclaim ``I know you both,
``Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am
sponsor for you: live in peace!''---
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?
II.
How much of
priceless life were spent
With men that every
virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society's true ornament,---
Ere we dared
wander, nights like this,
Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevart break again
To
warmth and light and bliss?
III.
I know! the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress
Your lips'
contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove.
The world's good word!---the Institute!
Guizot receives Montalembert!
Eh? Down the court three lampions flare:
Put forward your best foot!
LOVE IN A LIFE.
I.
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We
inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her---
Next time, herself!---not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:
Yon looking-glass gleaned at the wave of her feather.
II.
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune---
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,---who cares?
But 'tis
twilight, you see,---with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
LIFE IN A LOVE.
Escape me?
Never---
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the
loving and you the loth
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall
scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And, baffled, get up and begin again,---
So the chace takes up one's life ' that's all.
While, look but once from your
farthest bound
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope goes to ground
Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
I shape me---
Ever
Removed!
IN THREE DAYS
I.
So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come,
unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine,---
Only a touch and we combine!
II.
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short.
As night shows where ger one moon is,
A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,
So life's night gives my lady birth
And my eyes hold her! What is worth
The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?
III.
O loaded curls,
release your store
Of
warmth and scent, as once before
The tingling hair did, lights and darks
Outbreaking into fairy sparks,
When under curl and curl I pried
After the
warmth and scent inside,
Thro' lights and darks how manifold---
The dark inspired, the light controlled
As early Art embrowns the gold.
IV.
What great fear, should one say, ``Three days
``That change the world might change as well
``Your fortune; and if joy delays,
``Be happy that no worse befell!''