Tease
I WILL give you all my keys,
You shall be my châtelaine,
You shall enter as you please,
As you please shall go again.
When I hear you jingling through
All the chambers of my soul,
How I sit and laugh at you
In your vain housekeeping rôle.
Jealous of the smallest cover,
Angry at the simpler door;
Well, you anxious, inquisitive lover,
Are you pleased with what's in store?
You have fingered all my treasures,
Have you not, most curiously,
Handled all my tools and measures
And masculine machinery?
Over every single beauty
You have had your little rapture;
You have slain, as was your duty,
Every sin-mouse you could capture.
Still you are not satisfied,
Still you tremble faint reproach;
Challenge me I keep aside
Secrets that you may not broach.
Maybe yes, and maybe no,
Maybe there are secret places,
Altars barbarous below,
Elsewhere halls of high disgraces.
Maybe yes, and maybe no,
You may have it as you please,
Since I choose to keep you so,
Suppliant on your curious knees.
The Wild Common
THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping,
Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame;
Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping:
They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim.
Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie
Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick.
Are they asleep?--Are they alive?--Now see, when I
Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick.
The common flaunts bravely; but below, from the rushes
Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the blossoming bushes;
There the lazy streamlet pushes
Its curious course mildly; here it wakes again, leaps, laughs, and gushes.
Into a deep pond, an old ...
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