HE.
Yes, you, not she. If she were at your height!
But there's no martyr wrapt in HER rose flesh.
There should have been; for Nature gave you both
The self-same purple for your eyes and hair,
The self-same Southern music to your lips,
Fashioned you both, as 'twere, in the same mould,
Yet failed to put the soul in one of you!
I know her wilful—her light head quite turned
In this court atmosphere of flatteries;
A Moscow beauty, petted and spoiled there,
And since spoiled here; as soft as swan's down now,
With words like honey melting from the comb,
But being crossed, vindictive, cruel, cold.
I fancy her, between two rosy smiles,
Saying, "Poor fellow, in the Nertchinsk mines!"
That is the sum of her.