On The Brink

I WATCH’D her as she stoop’d to pluck  
 A wild flower in her hair to twine;  
And wish’d that it had been my luck  
       To call her mine;  
 
Anon I heard her rate with mad,
 Mad words her babe within its cot,  
And felt particularly glad  
       That it had not.  
 
I knew (such subtle brains have men!)  
 That she was uttering what she shouldn’t;
And thought that I would chide, and then  
       I thought I would n’t.  
 
Few could have gaz’d upon that face,  
 Those pouting coral lips, and chided:  
A Rhadamanthus, in my place,
       Had done as I did.  
 
For wrath with which our bosoms glow  
 Is chain’d there oft by Beauty’s spell;  
And, more than that, I did not know  
       The widow well.
 
So the harsh phrase pass’d unreprov’d:  
 Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)—  
I drank, unutterably mov’d,  
       Her beauty in.  
 
And to myself I murmur’d low,
 As on her upturn’d face and dress  
The moonlight fell, “Would she say No,—  
       By chance, or Yes?”  
 
She stood so calm, so like a ghost,  
 Betwixt me and that magic moon,
That I already was almost  
       A finish’d coon.  
 
But when she caught adroitly up  
 And sooth’d with smiles her little daughter;  
And gave it, if I ’m right, a sup
       Of barley-water;  
 
And, crooning still the strange, sweet lore  
 Which only mothers’ tongues can utter,  
Snow’d with deft hand the sugar o’er  
       Its bread-and-butter;
 
And kiss’d it clingingly (ah, why  
 Don’t women do these things in private?)—  
I felt that if I lost her, I  
       Should not survive it.  
 
And from my mouth the words nigh flew,—
 The past, the future, I forgat ’em,—  
“Oh, if you ’d kiss me as you do  
       That thankless atom!”  
 
But this thought came ere yet I spake,  
 And froze the sentence on my lips:
“They err who marry wives that make  
       Those little slips.”  
 
It came like some familiar rhyme,  
 Some copy to my boyhood set;  
And that ’s perhaps the reason I’m
       Unmarried yet.  
 
Would she have own’d how pleas’d she was,  
 And told her love with widow’s pride?  
I never found out that, because  
       I never tried.  
 
Be kind to babes and beasts and birds,  
 Hearts may be hard though lips are coral;  
And angry words are angry words:  
       And that ’s the moral.