THE POPPY 



TO MONICA 



SUMMER set lip to earth's bosom bare, 

 And left the flushed print in a poppy there : 

 Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, 

 And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame. 



With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank 

 The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, 

 And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine 

 Wlien the eastern conduits ran with wine. 



Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss, 

 And hot as a swinked gipsy is, 

 And drowsed in sleepy savageries. 

 With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss. 



A child and man paced side by side. 

 Treading the skirts of eventide ; 

 But between the clasp of his hand and hers 

 Lay, felt not, twenty withered years. 



She turned, with the rout of her dusk South hair, 

 And saw the sleeping gipsy there ; 

 And snatched and snapped it in swift child's whim. 

 With — ' Keep it, long as you live ! ' — to him. 



And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres. 

 Trembled up from a bath of tears ; 

 And joy, like a mew sea-rocked apart. 

 Tossed on the waves of his troubled heart. 

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