Classic Poem

If I were a rich man, would you smile at me?
Can your bosom that swells your blouse so firmly be bought
And all the smooth warmth of your nakedness?
You are straight and beautiful,
Your hair is black and you have slender ankles.
I have seen the bloom and colour of your face on peaches;
I have felt the grace of your walk in Grecian statues;
And, as you go, you look back over your shoulder sideways;
Coquette! you were born in the age that bore me,
And almost I love you, my dark goddess!

But if I came to you and said to you, I am rich;
I know a suburb: I know a house there; will you have it?
It has a red-tiled roof; it has two gardens;
It has casement windows with small leaded panes
And white curtains fluttering from them when they are opened.
It is furnished with old fumed oak and shining silver,
And armchairs stuffed with hair, with cushions of soft down,
And they are covered with bright-coloured cretonnes.
It has a bedroom smelling of the summer sky,
And a kitchen warm with enamelled saucepans and polished copper.
Would you have it, knowing that on any day
I might walk up that street beneath the acacias,
Open the garden gate, maybe pick a rose from the garden,
Let myself into the house with my key, and, perhaps

Not finding you in the hall—blue tiles, a mat, a hatstand—
Pass upstairs to the bedroom, and surprise you at your mirror,
Masked in the scented darkness of your waving hair?
Would your eyes, meeting mine in the mirror, smile welcome?
Would there be a tense block of silence in the silent house,
And a tenser wordless message from your eyes to mine
And mine to yours, in the mirror, stabbing our hearts?

But I am not rich, and I do not love you;
And I cannot give you the things your heart would prize, I know.
In spite of the grace you have captured from the lilies,
And the bloom you have taken from the red geraniums,
And the curves you have stolen from the lissome ash-trees,
I may not tempt you.