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115
A MARRIAGE PROSPECT.
Why should I heed their railings? What's a prude?A devil's scarecrow in the fields of good.
Let them rail on. I think a wedding-day
Looks best, as mountains do, some miles away,
Or squalid fishing-smacks far out to sea,
Seen lily-sailed in sunshine and blue haze,
Where the delicious lights are all men chase,
And no man ever reaches. And so I'm free
Another six weeks—move in a rich half-light,
A tenderest compromise of dark and bright,
A magic season, in short, when eyes that shine
And lips that whisper with soft words, combine
The spice of wrong, the conscience-ease of right,
And deepest sighs come most luxuriously.
Then too this twilight-time leads not to night
116
The sunrise of my day of married life,
Ere bride and bridegroom fade to man and wife:
And I meanwhile, a short time more, am free—
Or half free; wherefore let me love my fill
Of half-loves, ere I consecrate my days,
In sober, sombre truth, for good and ill,
To the one worship of a withering face.
An. æt. 19.
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