  “Varium et mutabile semper Foemina!”—Virgil THEY say she’s like an April day, All sun and shower, grave and gay, Just half in love, and half in play, Like other misses. Go to! They tell a pack of lies; For I have heard her heart-drawn sighs, And I have seen her inmost eyes, And felt her kisses! They think her laugh is over-bold, And hint her smiles are bought for gold; Dull heretics have thought her cold, Ah me! when we together stole Across the weald to leafy Knole, ’Twas there she showed to me her soul And all her passion! They vow her life is tossed about From ball to picnic, play to rout; A careless butterfly, no doubt, That scandal crushes. What could we answer, if ’twere said That Time and Fate two lovers led To lily-streams at Maidenhead, Among the rushes? Her reputation shivered most Last night at supper, when our host Made her of careless lips the toast And reigning goddess. But I, who know my love, dare say She thought of home, and tried to pray Before her handmaid slipped away Her satin bodice. Your silly worldings all forget Her depth of hidden life, and bet They’ve never met her equal yet In fact or fiction. But I, who love in secret, sit Unweaving webs that Fate has knit To bind me to so exquisite A contradiction. Clement Scott. |
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