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<h2>MYSTERY.</h2> I know not if in others’ eyes    She seem’d almost divine; But far beyond a doubt it lies    That she did not in mine. Each common stone on which she trod    I did not deem a pearl: Nay it is not a little odd    How I abhorr’d that girl. We met at balls and picnics oft,    Or on a drawingroom stair; My aunt invariably cough’d    To warn me she was there: p. 96At croquet I was bid remark    How queenly was her pose, As with stern glee she drew the dark    Blue ball beneath her toes, And made the Red fly many a foot:    Then calmly she would stoop, Smiling an angel smile, to put    A partner through his hoop. At archery I was made observe    That others aim’d more near. But none so tenderly could curve    The elbow round the ear: Or if we rode, perhaps she did    Pull sharply at the curb; But then the way in which she slid    From horseback was superb! p. 97She’d throw off odes, again, whose flow    And fire were more than Sapphic; Her voice was sweet, and very low;    Her singing quite seraphic: She was a seraph, lacking wings.    That much I freely own. But, it is one of those queer things    Whose cause is all unknown— (Such are the wasp, the household fly,    The shapes that crawl and curl By men called centipedes)—that I    Simply abhorred that girl. * * * No doubt some mystery underlies    All things which are and which are not: And ’tis the function of the Wise    Not to expound to us what is what, p. 98But let his consciousness play round    The matter, and at ease evolve The problem, shallow or profound,    Which our poor wits have fail’d to solve, Then tell us blandly we are fools;    Whereof we were aware before: That truth they taught us at the schools,    And p’raps (who knows?) a little more. —But why did we two disagree?    Our tastes, it may be, did not dovetail: All I know is, we ne’er shall be    Hero and heroine of a love-tale. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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