Coeur de Femme.
I CANNOT think that woman love as we
Love them, with soul and body, breath and blood,
And spent soul tortured in the strangling flood
Of passion’s tense oblivious agony;
I cannot think the kiss She gives to me
Thrills her white body as it pulses mine,
Or in Love’s chalice of ambrosial wine
She drowns all things which were or are to be.
We please them with our smile, for they are vain
And Love a flatterer is; they joy to fling
A rose-entwinèd leash about their slave;
Purple and gold they take, and winnowed grain
Of gems from Hesperus’ isle,—all men will bring;
But Love—lies bleeding by a woman’s grave!