H. L. Davis

From “Primapara”

THE YOUNG grass burnt up, so hot the air was:

And I was lying by her knee, near the cool low

Spring branch, in sight of the green shining meadow.

How red her mouth was, how fine her hair, and so cool;

Her hair was cool as the ground; I thought how red

Her mouth was, and wondered at her white wrists.

Another would have meddled, not have let me lie;

Another would have laughed when I put in items her beauty,

But she was still, like any scene or the sky.

Her red mouth, her wrists so white. “This is cool blood,

And it is deep, since it colors your mouth only.

I wonder and wonder at you—do you seem best

Playing with your hand in the dirt, like any dumb person?

For then you are like a black river-bird at rest;

Or like a poet sitting on the stairs among

The people like yours, and talking familiarly with them.

I wonder at you moreover because of your people,

Whose daughters should not seem sweet, yet you seem to me

Pleasanter to touch than are the light breast feathers

Of a bird: and your heart plays lowers, more like wind.

It is pleasure to lie by your knee here in the fields.”

I say yet, the white alders and the willows’ switching,

And the weaving of thin graceful weeds, pleased me more

Than to own pastures: because of her beauty. But say

Nothing like “Come away”, because her people

Work with her now where about cold low springs the smoke

From waters at morning stains the cold air all day.