Page:The Happy Marriage and Other Poems.pdf/57

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Ah, there's another touch
To throw them off the scent. They'll nudge and say,
My lord is mellow: they will never dream
How that still beauty on the canvas caught,
Caught and held fast, as in the brain sometimes
A gesture of the soul is caught and held,—
How that still beauty stopped my mouth with awe,
And left my poor brain gaping. Like a tree,
A birch tree, shining in a windy place
Where blown and shattered leaves of sunlight fall,
And grasses ripple and the flooding blue
Seems to engulf the world; or like a wave
That tips with foam and flowering in the sea
Drives on before the wind, a curve of sound

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