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From “Primapara”
THE YOUNG grass burnt up, so hot the air was: | |
| And I was lying by her knee, near the cool low | |
| Spring branch, in sight of the green shining meadow. | |
| How red her mouth was, how fine her hair, and so cool; | |
| Her hair was cool as the ground; I thought how red | 5 |
| Her mouth was, and wondered at her white wrists. | |
| Another would have meddled, not have let me lie; | |
| Another would have laughed when I put in items her beauty, | |
| But she was still, like any scene or the sky. | |
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| Her red mouth, her wrists so white. “This is cool blood, | 10 |
| And it is deep, since it colors your mouth only. | |
| I wonder and wonder at you—do you seem best | |
| Playing with your hand in the dirt, like any dumb person? | |
| For then you are like a black river-bird at rest; | |
| Or like a poet sitting on the stairs among | 15 |
| The people like yours, and talking familiarly with them. | |
| I wonder at you moreover because of your people, | |
| Whose daughters should not seem sweet, yet you seem to me | |
| Pleasanter to touch than are the light breast feathers | |
| Of a bird: and your heart plays lowers, more like wind. | 20 |
| It is pleasure to lie by your knee here in the fields.” | |
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| I say yet, the white alders and the willows’ switching, | |
| And the weaving of thin graceful weeds, pleased me more | |
| Than to own pastures: because of her beauty. But say | |
| Nothing like “Come away”, because her people | 25 |
| Work with her now where about cold low springs the smoke | |
| From waters at morning stains the cold air all day. | |
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