There! Look me full in the face!--in the face. Understand, if you can,

Why, that, she said, is no reason. Loves always free I am told.

I love my Walter profoundly,--you, Maude, though you faltered a week,

You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.

You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring.

VII

In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid."

And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.

XIX

But I, he replied, have promised another, when love was free,

You did me the honour, perhaps, to九九藏書 be moved at my side now and then

XXVII

And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.

I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?

XI

I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend.

To love her alone, alone, who alone from afar loves me.

A moment,--I pray your attention!--I have a poor word in my head

About crimes irresistable, virtues that swindle, betray and supplant.

If two should smell it what matter? who grumbles, and wheres the pretense?

But you, he replied, have a daughter, a young child, who was laid

Oh that, she said, is no reason! Such knots are quickly undoｒｅａｄ.９９ｃsw•ｃｏmne,

Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?

Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar--

IV

VIII

For the sake of . . . what is it--an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on the cheek?

If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much

Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine!

XX

And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! Ive broken the thing.

V

IX

XXI

Loves a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills,

To find me so fair as a woman? Why, sir九-九-藏-書, I am pure, and a wife.

You attain to it, straightaway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile.

I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.

XVI

X

XXII

Because I fear you, he answered;--because you are far too fair,

You wronged me: but then I considered . . . theres Walter! And so at the end

Too fair?--not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while,

Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.

III

Oh that, she said, is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:

That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought twould defame us to hear!

VI

To use unlawful and fatal. The praise! --九_九_藏_書shall I thank you for such?

XXIV

XVIII

But where do you go? said the lady, while both sat under the yew,

XIV

Yet farewell so, he answered; --the sunstrokes fatal at times.

XXIII

And since, when alls said, youre too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant

XXV

I

And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils.

Oh that, she said, is no reason. The angels keep out of the way;

XVII

XXVI

XII

In the senses--a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men.

Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply

At which she laughed out in her scorn: These men! Oh these men overnice,

What reason had you, and what right,九_九_藏_書--I appel to your soul from my life,--

By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.

XV

II

I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid.

XIII

Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.

And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.

That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.

I determined to prove to yourself that, whateer you might dream or avow

Her eyes blazed upon him--And you! You bring us your vices so near

Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.

At which he rose up in his anger,--Why now, you no longer are fair!