And to break now and then the screen Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between ! 7. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn. 8. Then we would up and pace, -For a change, about the place, Each with arm o'er neck "Tis our quarter-deck, We are seamen in woeful case. Help in the ocean-space! Or, if no help, we'll embrace. In a sledging-cap and vest. 'Tis a huge fur cloak Like a reindeer's yoke Falls the lappet along the breast Sleeves for her arms to rest, Or to hang, as my Love likes best. 10. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan. 11. Dearest, three months ago When the mesmeriser Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep, "Twas a time when the heart could show All-how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro! 12. Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the Devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe ! Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth! Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith! Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white! 16. What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred By a worm's pin-prick Where its roots are quick ? See the eye, by a fly's-foot blurred — Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd! 17. Foul be the world or fair, More or less, how can I care? 'Tis the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare →→ Oh, it is hard to bear! 18. Here's the spring back or close, We shall have the word In that minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows Heaps of the guelder-rose! I must bear with it, I suppose. 19. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum! 20. Then, were the world well stript Heart dispense with heart. In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,Oh, the world's hangings ripped, We were both in a bare-walled crypt! 21. Each in the crypt would cry "But one freezes here! and why? When a heart as chill At my own would thrill Back to life, and its fires out-fly? 22. So, she'd efface the score, I shall hear her knock In the worst of a storm's uproar I shall pull her through the door I shall have her for evermore! |