Classic Poem

This goblet is a little loving-cup.
I raise it to my lips, and where you kissed
There lurks a certain sting that I have missed
In nectars more laboriously put up.
Your hair is hissing startled golden sounds
Through gratings of your little cage of lies;
And I can read a promise in your eyes
As sunset fades across the coffee-grounds.
Yet vain the hope we shall collaborate
In this or that disorder, bad or worse;
For I but chase off flies with bits of verse,
While you resolve the curls of Time and Fate;
And though our path be circular or straight,
This is no Roman chariot, but a hearse.

You have, my love, mosquitoes in your eyes
That circle in a little cloud, and sting,
And make me mad for almost anything
That could provide indelicate surprise.
Here with the rag-bag of our destinies
Emptied upon the floor, in a small ring
We, sorting over pieces, softly sing;
And I sing music, love; and you sing lies.
O pampered darling on whose velvet knees
The Sphinx of carven ages lolls and purrs!
There shall be other æons after these
In which to whet those silver claws of hers.
Wherefore I do entreat you, an you please,
Not to disturb my whited sepulchers.

You are a minx, a marten, and a mouse:
Come in, for my menagerie is wide.
Though bed, or tree-nest, or wainscoting-house
You shall prefer, all lodgings I provide.
For I am very fearful you may choose
By stealth a secret triumph here to win;
So I make choice of what is least to lose,
And lest you draw me out, I draw you in.
Enter! and in these old halls take your rest
Or whatsoever else you choose to take.
You have a curious brain, a delicate breast—
I make you welcome here for either's sake.
Play on, my love, at being little sphinx,
While I set chairs for marten, mouse, and minx.

Yet, lest with too much taunting of the gods
They should grow angry that I torture so
Their beauty into devious periods,
I will speak truth one moment ere I go.
I will confess that loveliness has stirred
Like a long music through me many a time
When all my courts and fountains with some word
Of yours were echoing in a silver rhyme—
That when the apes and peacocks all have done
With prancing in the portico, there shall be
A recollection, safe from sun to sun,
Within the dark high-vaulted halls of me—
And one tall window, dearer than the rest,
Whose prospect is your open golden west.