  My love is now a woman grown. About her shoulders fall no more Her locks, in beauty all their own. Their days of liberty are o’er. No longer may, with soft caress, The zephyr’s unseen hand uplift Each net-like, golden-threaded tress To catch the sunlight’s moted drift. I know each tress, and have a name Whereby my memory holds it dear, From that which is her forehead’s frame To that which hides her shelly ear. And one there is I loved to touch, On which my heart first suffered wreck, That sometimes fell aside too much And showed the ivory of her neck. And though ’tis bound upon her head And all its beauty hid from me, Still other charms I see instead, And still am in captivity. I see the grace of neck and ear Unveiled, that erst beneath the tress But peeped, as pearly sea shells peer Through ocean’s weedy wilderness. Ye captive tresses that disdained My love, and wantoned in the wind, I know your grief, for I was chained Her slave ere ye were thus confined. She hath but gloried in our love, And laughs to find us strain our gyves. Come, let us slaves unite and prove That power to break her bond survives. Aid me with love her heart to chain, And soon, when she and I are wed, My hands shall set ye free again To wanton sweetly round her head. |
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