LOVE

Deep in the moving depths Of yellow wine, I swore I’d drown your face, O love of mine; All clad in yellow hue, So fair to see, You crouched within my cup And laughed at me.

Twice o’er a learned page I turned and tossed, For would I not forget The love I lost. All stern and robed in gloom, You read it too, I could not see the words— Saw only you.

Within the hungry chase I thought to kill You, love, who haunted thus Without my will, But in the gentle gaze Of fawn and deer, Your eyes disarmed my hand, And shook my spear.

Beneath a maid’s dark lash I swore you’d drown, Sink in the laughing blue— Give in, go down: But no! you bathèd there Right joyously, And from her liquid eyes You laughed at me.