Francis Thompson - A Girl`s Sin - In Her EyesFrancis Thompson - A Girl`s Sin - In Her Eyes
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Cross child! red, and frowning so?
`I, the day just over,
Gave a lock of hair to--no!
How DARE you say, my lover?`
He asked you?--Let me understand;
Come, child, let me sound it!
`Of course, he WOULD have asked it, and--
And so--somehow--he--found it.
`He told it out with great loud eyes--
Men have such little wit!
His sin I ever will chastise
Because I gave him it.
`Shameless in me the gift, alas!
In him his open bliss:
But for the privilege he has
A thousand he shall miss!
`His eyes, where once I dreadless laughed,
Call up a burning blot:
I hate him, for his shameful craft
That asked by asking not!`
Luckless boy! and all for hair
He never asked, you said?
`Not just--but then he gazed--I swear
He gazed it from my head!
`His silence on my cheek like breath
I felt in subtle way;
More sweet than aught another saith
Was what he did not say.
`He`ll think me vanquished, for this lapse,
Who should be above him;
Perhaps he`ll think me light; perhaps--
Perhaps he`ll think I--love him!
`Are his eyes conscious and elate,
I hate him that I blush;
Or are they innocent, still I hate--
They mean a thing`s to hush.
`Before he nought amiss could do,
Now all things show amiss;
`Twas all my fault, I know that true,
But all my fault was his.
`I hate him for his mute distress,
`Tis insult he should care!
Because my heart`s all humbleness,
All pride is in my air.
`With him, each favour that I do
Is bold suit`s hallowing text;
Each gift a bastion levelled, to
The next one and the next.
`Each wish whose grant may him befall
Is clogged by those withstood;
He trembles, hoping one means all,
And I, lest perhaps it should.
`Behind me piecemeal gifts I cast,
My fleeing self to save;
And that`s the thing must go at last,
For that`s the thing he`d have.
`My lock the enforc-ed steel did grate
To cut; its root-thrills came
Down to my bosom. It might sate
His lust for my poor shame!
`His sifted dainty this should be
For a score ambrosial years!
But his too much humility
Alarums me with fears.
`My gracious grace a breach he counts
For graceless escalade;
And, though he`s silent ere he mounts,
My watch is not betrayed.
`My heart hides from my soul he`s sweet:
Ah dread, if he divine!
One touch, I might fall at his feet,
And he might rise from mine.
`To hear him praise my eyes` brown gleams
Was native, safe delight;
But now it usurpation seems,
Because I`ve given him right.
`Before I`d have him not remove,
Now would not have him near;
With sacrifice I called on Love,
And the apparition`s Fear.`
Foolish to give it!--`Twas my whim,
When he might parted be,
To think that I should stay by him
In a little piece of me.
`He always said my hair was soft--
What touches he will steal!
Each touch and look (and he`ll look oft)
I almost thought I`d feel.
`And then, when first he saw the hair,
To think his dear amazement!
As if he wished from skies a star,
And found it in his casement.
`He`s kiss the lock--and I had toyed
With dreamed delight of this:
But ah, in proof, delight was void--
I could not SEE his kiss!`
So, fond one, half this agony
Were spared, which my hand hushes,
Could you have played, Sweet, the sweet spy,
And blushed not for your blushes!
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