“UNDER THE ROSE.”
[A Platonic Kiss.]
You kissed me, as if roses slipped
Their rose-bud necklaces, and blew
Such breaths as never yet have dipped
The bee in fragrance over-shoe,
While rose-leaves of their color stripped
Themselves to make a blush for you.
Nor chide with such a cold constraint,
As if you laid the rose in snow;
For this the summer stores her paint,
The dappled twilights overflow
With motley colors, pied and quaint,
For kisses that in flowers do grow.
Nor pout and tease: you did not mean
So sweet a thing. Abide this test:
In open markets grades are seen
Of good and bad, in price expressed;
The buyer’s purse must choose between;
But when we give, we give the best.
Yet if that color, sweet as bees,
Of flower-flushes teases, see
How we can pluck such thorns as these,
That bleed in blushes, easily;
For, kiss me, sweet, just as you please,
I’ll take it as it pleases me.
Harney.
