PASTORAL
Out in the fields, at times,
When you are too tired to speak
And I cease from stringing you rhymes
And kissing your mouth and cheek,
When the sun beats down so hot
That you lie with half-closed eyes
Drinking in what air’s to be got,
I move from your breast, half rise,
And bend o’er your face awhile,
My arm round your neck beneath,
And gaze past your lazy smile
’Twixt the even white lines of your teeth,
To your inner mouth and your throat
Where, like water-anemones,
Pink mounds and tendrils float
In silky salivan seas.
I scarce can believe it true
That within that delicate gate
Is the whole strange structure of you
So wondrously ornate.
And I marvel that a brain
That can think is thereabove,
That below that tiny drain
Is a crimson heart that can move—
