VII. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger-tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn! VIII. Then we would up and pace, For a change, about the place, We are seamen in woeful case. IX. See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest! Like a reindeer's roke Falls the lappet along the breast: Or to hang, as my Love likes best. X. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man! XI. Dearest, three months ago When the mesmerizer Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep 'Twas a time when the heart could show All-how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro? XII. Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe! XIII. Not from the heart beneath 'T was a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth! Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith! XIV. Woman, and will you cast Me, your own, your You,— Since, as truth is true, I was You all the happy past— With the memories We amassed? XV. Love, if you knew the light For the pure and true, And the beauteous and the right, Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white! XVI. What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's-foot blurred— Far, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd! XVII. Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care ? 'T is the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare Oh, it is hard to bear! XVIII. Here's the spring back or close, In a minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows : Heaps of the guelder-rose ! I must bear with it, I suppose. XIX. Could but November come, Of his driver's-lash I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum! XX. Then, were the world well stripped Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,Oh, the world's hangings ripped, We were both in a bare-walled crypt! |