| |
| I WATCH’D her as she stoop’d to pluck | |
| A wildflower in her hair to twine; | |
| And wish’d that it had been my luck | |
| To call her mine. | |
| |
| Anon I heard her rate with mad | 5 |
| Mad words her babe within its cot; | |
| And felt particularly glad | |
| That it had not. | |
| |
| I knew (such subtle brains have men) | |
| That she was uttering what she should n’t; | 10 |
| And thought that I would chide, and then | |
| I thought I would n’t. | |
| |
| Who could have gazed upon that face, | |
| Those pouting coral lips, and chided? | |
| A Rhadamanthus, in my place, | 15 |
| Had done as I did: | |
| |
| For ire wherewith our bosoms glow | |
| Is chain’d there oft by Beauty’s spell; | |
| And, more than that, I did not know | |
| The widow well. | 20 |
| |
| So the harsh phrase pass’d unreproved. | |
| Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)— | |
| I drank, unutterably moved, | |
| Her beauty in: | |
| |
| And to myself I murmur’d low, | 25 |
| As on her upturn’d face and dress | |
| The moonlight fell, “Would she say No, | |
| By chance, or Yes?” | |
| |
| She stood so calm, so like a ghost | |
| Betwixt me and that magic moon, | 30 |
| That I already was almost | |
| A finish’d coon. | |
| |
| But when she caught adroitly up | |
| And soothed with smiles her little daughter; | |
| And gave it, if I’m right, a sup | 35 |
| Of barley-water; | |
| |
| And, crooning still the strange sweet lore | |
| Which only mothers’ tongues can utter, | |
| Snow’d with deft hand the sugar o’er | |
| Its bread-and-butter; | 40 |
| |
| And kiss’d it clingingly—(Ah, why | |
| Don’t women do these things in private?)— | |
| I felt that if I lost her, I | |
| Should not survive it: | |
| |
| And from my mouth the words nigh flew— | 45 |
| The past, the future, I forgat ’em: | |
| “Oh! if you’d kiss me as you do | |
| That thankless atom!” | |
| |
| But this thought came ere yet I spake, | |
| And froze the sentence on my lips: | 50 |
| “They err, who marry wives that make | |
| These little slips.” | |
| |
| It came like some familiar rhyme, | |
| Some copy to my boyhood set; | |
| And that’s perhaps the reason I’m | 55 |
| Unmarried yet. | |
| |
| Would she have own’d how pleased she was, | |
| And told her love with widow’s pride? | |
| I never found out that, because | |
| I never tried. | 60 |
| |
| Be kind to babes and beasts and birds: | |
| Hearts may be hard, though lips are coral; | |
| And angry words are angry words: | |
| And that’s the moral. | |
| |
