Virtues with beauty dwell:
So poets sing,
This contradiction not
Considering:
That she, so cruel-sweet,
Far, far apart,
Tortures my body still,
Still in my heart.
Or does this explain it?
One heart my darling took;
One pines as if to die;
One throbs with feeling pure:
How many hearts have I?
And yet
If all the world from virtue draws
A blessing and a gain,
Why should all virtue in my maid,
My fawn-eyed maiden, pain?
Each guards his home, they say;
Yet in my heart you stay,
Burning your home alway,
Sweet, heartless one!
That these—her bosom's youthful pride,
Her curling hair, her sinuous side,
Her blood-red lip, her waist so small—
Should hurt me, is not strange at all:
But that her cheeks so clear, so bright,
Should torture me, is far from right.
Her bosom, like an elephant's brow,
Swells, saffron-scented. How, ah, how
