Whym Chow: Flame of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

I want you, little Love, not from the skies:
To-day I want you in my starving eyes;
To see your jasper scowl across the brow,
As precious jasper barred
Scowls in its substance. I would wonder how
Thou could'st have ears so soft, yet as a pard
Such sudden feet. Oh, I would watch the glint
Of all the wealth the sun from thee could mint—
Thy paler wool that from the moon would take
Reflex of sun and into silver break.

I want you with your resolute, fine jaw
Snapped down to hold one love, one love no more,
Not mine, but hers we love: your glance, the spark
Prometheus stole as fire,
A little thing that could remove the dark
It lived through, making of its haunt a pyre;
A glance with wayward shifting of pure flame,
And strength to found a Temple-hearth, be tame
To worship, but to other curbing wild,
Nor to sky-robbing earth yet reconciled.

I want you, when to guard our door you rushed,
In whirlwind loyalty; or when you brushed
Against the knee your little chin with soft
Claim for caress, in anxious play
Still buzzing like a wasp, and claiming oft;
Or when with wary, pointed nose you lay
Hearing your mistress praise her doves aloud,
While of her praise you made a little cloud;
Or when reverberent as echoed shout
Your face acclaimed the “Yes” of going out.

I want you with the gold-set, fearful stress
With which you lived to your one blessedness.
A herald sure to your Beloved, her sign,
Her symbol, as the lion we see
Beside St. Jerome, or the wheel divine
Set by Egyptian Catharine goldenly...
Ever thy feet in fourfold trip with those
They move for; or thy body in repose.
Cast with a smack against the floor of pride
As a Knight clanged down by his lady's side.

I want you in your great magnificence
Of Eastern calm, holding your rage in fence
Of roses and of jasmine and of grapes:
Or when in sun and wind you ran,
Flashing a joy to me such as escapes
From spirits of untameable, far span,
Who sometimes mingle in a poet's mirth,
Having such element of starry earth

In spell about them that their very eyes
Give and receive terrestrial sympathies.

I want you in your thousand ways of love—
The rapture of your welcome, far above
What choral stars as the world rose to them
Gave in their dance of fire and light—
A welcome many moments could not stem,
That fell exhausted with Time's cruel fight,
Fell down and slept. O little Chow, to see
These loved and perfect sights avouching thee,
Not far away, as visions may appear,
O apple of our eyes, but with us here!