Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Don Juan in PortugalFlorence Wilkinson
A
Faces to set my teeth on edge—
Gray gossips, like a dusty hedge,
Whisper and crackle.
With fig-leaves twisted round its rim.
Pauses a slim
Tall maid. Her name?—A Latin hymn,
A white-rose face dipped tremulous—
A profile carved as nobly clear
As love-child of Aurelius.
Vase-bearing nymph ripe to be wooed
In some delicious interlude.
What need now to remember more?—
The tiled and twisted fountain’s pour,
The vase forgotten on the floor,
The white street ending in her door;
Her diadem
Of heavy hair, the Moorish low estalegem;
Outside, the stillness and white glare
Of Alcobaca’s noonday square;
My hands that dare—
The beauty of her loosened hair:
Her lips, her arms, her throat, her feet;
After a while—the bread and meat,
Olives that glisten wet with brine.
White rose of Alcobaca—mine—
We kiss again above the wine!
The red wine drunk, the broken crust,
We parted as all lovers must.
Madre in gloria, be thou just
To that frail glory—
A white rose fallen into dust!