Gazes in this whiteness: nightlong could I.
Here may life on death or death on life be painted.
Let me clasp her soul to know she cannot die!
* * * * *
Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber
Where there is no window, read not heaven or her.
‘When she was a tiny,’ one aged woman quavers,
Plucks at my heart and leads me by the ear.
Faults she had once as she learnt to run and tumbled:
Faults of feature some see, beauty not complete.