TOWN GIRL I TOOK a maiden from the town To
woods and fields and gardens Gave to her nature for her own And in a meadow set her down And told her it was Eden.
Showed her the sky with words as blue And pure as I could make them, Touched down her sleeping lids with dew And in the sweetest way I knew I showed her how to wake them.
I taught her in my arms to lean Across the sunlit river, And whispered to her she had seen, Between the ripple and the sheen, A mermaid with her lover.
I watched the wind that lapped her limbs And flowed like silk about her, Remembered, in the interims, How tanned her body was, which dims Now that I am without her.
Came one who found her all alone, Said that he must be heartless Who dared to leave her brown and blown Where so much beauty was unknown, Whose mystery was matchless.
And now the mystery is gone, The candlelight and clover That was her cheek, her chin! Thereon The graves of what my lips had done Are pinkly painted over.
DIANA JAMES.
Previous page
