“We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played;
If slightly worn, she’s pretty yet,
And gossips, after all, forget.
“And he knows nothing of her past;
I am glad the girl’s in luck at last;
Such ones, though stale to native eyes,
Newcomers snatch at as a prize.”
“Yes, being a stranger he sees her blent
Of all that’s fresh and innocent,
Nor dreams how many a love-campaign
She had enjoyed before his reign!”
That night there was the splash of a fall
Over the slimy harbour-wall:
They searched, and at the deepest place
Found him with crabs upon his face.
A CONVERSATION AT DAWN
He lay awake, with a harassed air,
And she, in her cloud of loose lank hair,
Seemed trouble-tried
As the dawn drew in on their faces there.
The chamber looked far over the sea
From a white hotel on a white-stoned quay,
And stepping a stride
He parted the window-drapery.
Above the level horizon spread
The sunrise, firing them foot to head
From its smouldering lair,
And painting their pillows with dyes of red.
“What strange disquiets have stirred you, dear,
This dragging night, with starts in fear
Of me, as it were,
Or of something evil hovering near?”
“My husband, can I have fear of you?
What should one fear from a man whom few,
Or none, had matched
In that late long spell of delays undue!”