Page:Poems and lyrics of the joy of earth.djvu/152

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POEMS AND LYRICS.

XIII.

My version, madam, runs not to that end.
A certain madness of an hour half past,
Caught her like fever: her just lord no friend
She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew
The prim acerbity, sweet Love's outcast.
Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!

XIV.

Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous:
How generous likewise that you do not name
Offended nature! She from all of us
Couched idle underneath our showering tree,
May quite withhold her most destructive flame;
And then what woeful women we!