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Poems Real and Ideal

By George Barlow

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SONNET. IN BOHEMIA: A CONTRAST.
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104

SONNET. IN BOHEMIA: A CONTRAST.

A scanty room:—poor furniture indeed:
Just one thin-blanketed small tressel-bed,
And over it a washed-out grey shawl spread;
Wall-paper showing some green wide-branched weed.
Cracked low discoloured ceiling overhead
And on the floor a rug,—no carpet there;
A picture opposite that seemed to stare,
Full of great colour-blots of blue and red.
Such was the bower of love:—and on the bed
A woman, beautiful as early morn.
Soft cool lips, full of love, or full of scorn,
And breast whose sweet touch might awake the dead.
No golden palace,—yet within this place
More than a Cleopatra's eyes and face.
May, 1882.