THE VIRGIN SOUL
Body yours? Perhaps it is, fettered by some strange conventionThat has labelled me and numbered me, who never should be labelled!Soul and mind so much my own—I laugh to see them jauntingBaggage-free, along the paths, where the lilies flauntingBurn the morn with tiger spots: and with pollen showers,Merrily go fancy's steeds who never have been stabled,Trampling all the privet hedge and browsing on the flowers.
Body yours if thus you will, by Man's queer inventionOf a law to bind a love, which never could be bound.Do you kiss a corpse and find a semblance to the living?Outraged spirit in my bosom such a travesty forgivingJust because I fear to hurt you by the bitter truth revealingWhen you seem to be contented with the flaccid thing you've found—Fondle husks left in your keeping, while the rebel soul is stealing