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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; | |
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Anon I heard her rate with mad, | 5 |
Mad words her babe within its cot, | |
And felt particularly glad | |
That it had not. | |
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I knew (such subtle brains have men!) | |
That she was uttering what she shouldnt; | 10 |
And thought that I would chide, and then | |
I thought I wouldnt. | |
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Few could have gazed upon that face, | |
Those pouting coral lips, and chided: | |
A Rhadamanthus, in my place, | 15 |
Had done as I did. | |
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For wrath with which our bosoms glow | |
Is chained there oft by Beautys spell; | |
And, more than that, I did not know | |
The widow well. | 20 |
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So the harsh phrase passed unreproved: | |
Still mute(O brothers, was it sin?) | |
I drank unutterably moved, | |
Her beauty in. | |
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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? | |
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She stood so calm, so like a ghost, | |
Betwixt me and that magic moon, | 30 |
That I already was almost | |
A finished coon. | |
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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; | |
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And, crooning still the strange, sweet lore | |
Which only mothers tongues can utter, | |
Snowed with deft hand the sugar oer | |
Its bread-and-butter; | 40 |
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And kissed it clingingly (ah, why | |
Dont women do these things in private?) | |
I felt that if I lost her, I | |
Should not survive it. | |
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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! | |
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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. | |
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It came like some familiar rhyme, | |
Some copy to my boyhood set; | |
And that s perhaps the reason I m | 55 |
Unmarried yet. | |
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Would she have owned how pleased she was, | |
And told her love with widows pride? | |
I never found out that, because | |
I never tried. | 60 |
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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. | |
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