1
YOUR anger charms me,
and yet all the time
I think of chaste, slight hands,
veined snow;
snow craters filled
with first wild-flowerlets;
glow of ice-gentian,
whitest violet;
snow craters
and the ice ridge
spilling light;
dawn and the lover
chaste dawn leaves bereft—
I think of these
and snow-cooled Phrygian wine.
Your anger charms me subtly
and I know
that you would take
the still hands
where I’d rest;
you would despoil
for very joy of theft;
list, lady,
I would give you one last hint:
quench your red mouth
in some cold forest lake,
cover your russet locks
with arum leaf,
quench out the colour,
still the fevered glance,
cover your want,
your fire insatiate,
I can not match your fervour,
nay, nor still my ache
with any
but white hands inviolate.