On The Brink.

I watch'd her as she stoop'd to pluck      A wildflower in her hair to twine;     And wish'd that it had been my luck      To call her mine.     Anon I heard her rate with mad      Mad words her babe within its cot;     And felt particularly glad      That it had not.     I knew (such subtle brains have men)      That she was uttering what she shouldn't;     And thought that I would chide, and then      I thought I wouldn't:     Who could have gazed upon that face,      Those pouting coral lips, and chided?     A Rhadamanthus, in my place,      Had done as I did:     For ire wherewith our bosoms glow      Is chain'd there oft by Beauty's spell;     And, more than that, I did not know      The widow well.     So the harsh phrase pass'd unreproved.      Still mute - (O brothers, was it sin?) -     I drank, unutterably moved,      Her beauty in:     And to myself I murmur'd low,      As on her upturn'd face and dress     The moonlight fell, "Would she say No,      By chance, or Yes?"     She stood so calm, so like a ghost      Betwixt me and that magic moon,     That I already was almost      A finish'd coon.     But when she caught adroitly up      And soothed with smiles her little daughter;     And gave it, if I'm right, a sup      Of barley-water;     And, crooning still the strange sweet lore      Which only mothers' tongues can utter,     Snow'd with deft hand the sugar o'er      Its bread and butter;     And kiss'd it clingingly - (Ah, why      Don't women do these things in private?) -     I felt that if I lost her, I      Should not survive it:     And from my mouth the words nigh flew -      The past, the future, I forgat 'em:     "Oh! if you'd kiss me as you do      That thankless atom!"     But this thought came ere yet I spake,      And froze the sentence on my lips:     "They err, who marry wives that make      Those little slips."     It came like some familiar rhyme,      Some copy to my boyhood set;     And that's perhaps the reason I'm      Unmarried yet.     Would she have own'd how pleased she was,      And told her love with widow's pride?     I never found out that, because      I never tried.     Be kind to babes and beasts and birds:      Hearts may be hard, though lips are coral;     And angry words are angry words:      And that's the moral.