Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE THEFT, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE THEFT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When celia, coming from the stream
Last Line: And gave it back to love.
Subject(s): Cupid; Desire; Virginity; Eros; Vestals


WHEN Celia, coming from the stream
In lovely disarray,
Had sight of Cupid deep adream
Where she was wont to lay
Her body on a bed of moss
Before she dressed again,
She vowed to punish by a loss
The god of tender pain.

While innocently there he kept
The truce of sleep, the maid,
As soft as Arethusa, crept
Along the bird-sweet glade.
By chance the clover of her breast
And every treble bird
So mingled with the soul of rest
That Cupid never stirred.

Then Celia delicately threw
Her shadow on the lad,
And from his pearly quiver drew
The single shaft he had.
When thus she held in merriment
The solitary dart,
Above the trespasser she bent
And lightly pricked his heart.

No fluttered thrush could ever rise
More swiftly from the ground
Than Cupid, sparkling with surprise,
Sprang up, and gazed around.
Before him stood a maid as tall
As Venus, and as fair,
Whose heart was playing rise-and-fall
Beneath a stream of hair.

She made such sweetness in the wood
That even Cupid felt
His pulses falter to the mood
Of godship pleased to melt:
His underlip was shaking, why
He knew not; and he wept.
The arrow stolen from his thigh
Had pricked him as he slept.

Had Celia leaned with all her weight
Upon the shaft, this plan
Had shown the dimpled god the fate
His arrows bear to man:
So girlishly she'd held the boy
Beneath the point of pain
That soon, with sparkles of annoy,
He sought his own again.

He leaped, and with a sudden whirl
Of arms took Celia's knee,
Beginning thence to climb the girl
As though she were a tree.
His arms embraced her by the hips;
An elbow stabbed her side;
He barely failed her mouth with lips
Cherried and deified.

But though the god's impatient knees
Were drumming on her breast,
Not even then did Celia please
To satisfy his quest.
So, learning how his little strength
Would never mend his loss,
Adown the thief's delicious length
Slid Cupid to the moss.

Thereat began a parleying
Between the god and girl
About the theft of wood and wing
From out the case of pearl,
Till, swearing by his mother's heart
Of honey, Cupid cried
His willingness to aim the dart
As Celia should decide.

Then Celia, while the earliest speck
Of radiant blushing came,
Flung both her arms round Cupid's neck
And whispered him a name.
And when he promised they should be
As fond as dove and dove
She kissed the arrow charmingly
And gave it back to Love.





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