A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/In Praise of Women (Auguste Brizeux)
IN PRAISE OF WOMEN.
In my mistress I loved nought at first but her beauty,
The rosy fresh mouth to which smiles seemed a duty,
The shoulder's contour smooth and shining like gold,
And the lithe supple figure that the mirror adorning,
Bent at each step, as under wings of the morning
Bend willows o'er waves their own grace to behold.
I knew then the beauty: nought to me it imported,
If a soul in her bright eyes, when spoke she, disported,
Under the long-pencilled and dark Arab brows,
Happy, happy to breathe the chaste air her surrounding
And to hear the pure crystal of her accent resounding,
I moved in a dream when we mingled our vows.
Pardon if thou canst! Lo, at thy feet I cry, pardon!
When pale and heart-broken in the old walled garden
More feeble than thou, woman, more feeble by far,
I came all in tears, thy aid—thy counsel to borrow,
Then woke thy hid beauty in the midst of my sorrow,
And thy soul in its grandeur shone out like a star!
O tears! O deep sighs! O love's mystic story!
Women, to charm us, have two crowns as their glory,
A visible beauty and a beauty unseen—
Beings twice-gifted! Souls a1l-powerful and tender!
Our hearts and our wishes to them we surrender,
Firm-bound in their fetters, not of earth and terrene.