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

One attitude, the only one
That never changes, we must keep
When the warm flux of life is gone,
One attitude, but one, that sleep
Of its own self and loneliness
Doth with a sovereign stamp impress,
The terror of one endless pose.—
O vivid, little Chow, O Rose
Of circling life, erected head,
And limbs of ever-lambent red,
That would not wait a jot for aught
The impulse of their motion sought;
Impatience beautiful, and tart—
Yea, with desire's exceeding smart...
Now limbs stretched forth and flank stretched slim,
Down from thy ruff's deep mantling rim,
Thy forehead plain in rest, thine eye
Glinted aslant and lazily...
Just as so often I have seen
Thee slumbering with a lion's mien.
Long watched I then, but never stayed
Thus on thy sleep, as if delayed
Before a state-duration held
Fast, and in sculptured presence spelled.
Not life—with this unthought-of woe,
We still must see it ever so...

The terror—it is life, and yet
A form we never may forget;
And never may its contours move,
Nor its closed posture answer love.