 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
77
ONE MAY NIGHT.
How blandly, Love, this air of evening slips
In from the drowsy violets to your lips!
If I were some great painter, I would draw
Your splendor of cool shoulder without flaw;
Your arms, like those the boy of Ida kist,
Each wavering to its wonder of white wrist;
Your throat, o'er which your face's full flower glows,
A stem so stately to so grand a rose!
And while I wrought them, burn beneath a spell
That smiles and tears must interblend to tell!
In from the drowsy violets to your lips!
If I were some great painter, I would draw
Your splendor of cool shoulder without flaw;
Your arms, like those the boy of Ida kist,
Each wavering to its wonder of white wrist;
Your throat, o'er which your face's full flower glows,
A stem so stately to so grand a rose!
And while I wrought them, burn beneath a spell
That smiles and tears must interblend to tell!
But lift toward me that fragrant mouth: for why
Should a mere breeze be deeplier blest than I?
Were not these heavy blue-black tresses made
The swart broad molding of your brows to shade,
As shaded once the locks of Egypt's queen
Brows where the jewelled sparrow blazed in sheen?
For hearts to have, life holds no lovelier thing
Within her hands than love and youth and Spring;
Yet gazing on your fresh cheek one should say,
Though Winter were at wildest—“It is May!”
Should a mere breeze be deeplier blest than I?
Were not these heavy blue-black tresses made
The swart broad molding of your brows to shade,
As shaded once the locks of Egypt's queen
Brows where the jewelled sparrow blazed in sheen?
For hearts to have, life holds no lovelier thing
Within her hands than love and youth and Spring;
Yet gazing on your fresh cheek one should say,
Though Winter were at wildest—“It is May!”
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