Back Aa

Fly Leaves

Close

<h2>ON THE BRINK.</h2> 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    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; And thought that I would chide, and then       I thought I wouldn’t: p. 82Who could have gazed upon that face,    Those pouting coral lips, and chided? A Rhadamanthus, in my place,       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. 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,    As on her upturn’d face and dress The moonlight fell, “Would she say No,       By chance, or Yes?” p. 83She stood so calm, so like a ghost    Betwixt me and that magic moon, 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       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; 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: p. 84And from my mouth the words nigh flew—    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: “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       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. p. 85Be 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2