Modern Love: VII

She issues radiant from her dressing-room, Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere: —By stirring up a lower, much I fear! How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom! That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls Can make known woman torturingly fair; The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair, Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls. His art can take the eyes from out my head, Until I see with eyes of other men; While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, And sends a spark up:—is it true we’re wed? Yea! filthiness of body is most vile, But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse. The former, it were not so great a curse To read on the steel-mirror of her smile.