I tell you, Sven, she will not heed you, I warn you that hers are Strange lips, with not a word to bleed you -- She is singular. Though clean and clear as water cresses, Ripple-ringed and deep, There are pockets in her dresses Where the lizards creep . . . . Strong of limb but all aquiver, With a body hale as malt, Like the deer beside the river When they come to lick the salt. She'll outrun you, going faster Than your savings or your life, Cut the blue-joint or the aster Like a sickle or a knife! She's no man's. I say, "Be sober!" Grind your wit to sharper steel. Though she's golden as October With a little rounded heel. Pinkly flushed, yet she is colder Than the sparrow in the snows; She will lean against the shoulder Of the bleakest wind that blows. Born so wild, she'd not be noting Though you coined her kisses rare, And like bubbles left them floating, Ghost-fruit on the air. . . . Sven, no good can come of mating With the weed, the outlaw leaf; See, the willing grain is waiting -- Come and bind me in a sheaf. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GREEN SYMPHONY by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND PEOPLING WESTERN COUNTRY by PHILIP FRENEAU A CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY; CHRISTMAS-EVE 1899 by THOMAS HARDY AN UNINSCRIBED MONUMENT - BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS by HERMAN MELVILLE THE NOBLEMAN AND THE PENSIONER by GOTTLIEB KONRAD PFEFFEL |