| |
| I WATCHED her as she stooped to pluck | |
| A wild flower in her hair to twine; | |
| And wished 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 shouldn’t; | 10 |
| And thought that I would chide, and then | |
| I thought I wouldn’t. | |
| |
| Few could have gazed upon that face, | |
| Those pouting coral lips, and chided: | |
| A Rhadamanthus, in my place, | 15 |
| Had done as I did. | |
| |
| For wrath with which our bosoms glow | |
| Is chained there oft by Beauty’s spell; | |
| And, more than that, I did not know | |
| The widow well. | 20 |
| |
| So the harsh phrase passed unreproved: | |
| Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)— | |
| I drank unutterably moved, | |
| Her beauty in. | |
| |
| And to myself I murmured low, | 25 |
| As on her upturned 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 finished 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, | |
| Snowed with deft hand the sugar o’er | |
| Its bread-and-butter; | 40 |
| |
| And kissed 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 | |
| Those 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 owned 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. | |
| |
