"Love on!" he seemed to say, "I make more sweet
The road of life you are to wander by,
Spreading the velvet moss beneath your feet;
Kiss, if you will; I shall not play the spy."
Love on, love on! In murmurs of the breeze,
In limpid stream, and in the woodland screen
That burgeons fresh in the renovated green,
In stars, in flowers, and music of the trees,
Love on, love on! But if my golden sun,
My spring, that comes once more to gladden earth,
If these should move your breasts to grateful mirth,
I ask no thanksgiving, your kiss is one.
A month passed by; and, when the roses bloomed
In beds that we had planted in the spring,
When least of all I thought my love was doomed,
You cast it from you like a noisome thing.
Not that your scorn was all reserved for me,
It flies about the world by fits and starts;
Your changeful fancy fits impartially
From knave of diamonds to knave of hearts.
And now you are happy, with a brilliant suite
Of bowing slaves and insincere gallants;
Go where you will, you see them at your feet;
A bed of perfumed posies round you flaunts:
The Ball's your garden: an admiring globe
Of lovers rolls about the lit saloon,
And, at the rustling of your silken robe,
The pack, in chorus, bay you like the moon.
Shod in the softness of a supple boot
Which Cinderella would have found too small,
One scarcely sees your little pointed foot
Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball.
Shod in the softness of a supple boot
Which Cinderella would have found too small,
One scarcely sees your little pointed foot
Flash in the flashing circle of the Ball.
In the soft baths that indolence has brought
Your once brown hands have got the ivory white,
The pallor of the lily which has caught
The silver moonbeam of a summer night: