VARIOUS POEMS
A hundred lustres flashed and shone as she rustled through the crowd,
And a passion seized me for her there,—so passionless and proud.
The second time that I saw her she met me face to face;
Her bending beauty answered my bow in a tremulous moment's space;
With an upward glance that instantly fell she read me through and through,
And found in me something worth her while to idle with and subdue;
Something, I know not what: perhaps the spirit of eager youth,
That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved her in very truth;
That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offered her, in a breath,
The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.
The third time that I saw her—this woman called Estelle—
She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;
A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moonbeams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight!
And at many a trysting afterwards she wove my heartstrings round
Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;
The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch's bell;
Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle!
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