YOUR smile is like a treachery, A treachery adorable; So smiles the siren where the sea Sings to the unforgetting shell.

Your fleeting Leonardo face, Parisian Monna Lisa, dreams Elusively, but not of streams Born in a shadow-haunted place.

Of Paris, Paris, is your thought, Of Paris robes, and when to wear The latest bonnet you have bought To match the marvel of your hair.

Yet that fine malice of your smile, That faint and fluctuating glint Between your eyelids, does it hint Alone of matters mercantile?

Close lips that keep the secret in, Half spoken by the stealthy eyes, Is there indeed no word to win, No secret, from the vague replies

Of lips and lids that feign to hide That which they feign to render up? Is there, in Tantalus’ dim cup, The shadow of water, nought beside?

 

ON MEETING AFTER.

HER eyes are haunted, eyes that were Scarce sad when last we met. What thing is this has come to her That she may not forget?

They loved, they married: it is well! But ah, what memories Are these whereof her eyes half tell, Her haunted eyes?

 

IN BOHEMIA.

DRAWN blinds and flaring gas within, And wine, and women, and cigars; Without, the city’s heedless din; Above, the white unheeding stars.

And we, alike from each remote, The world that works, the heaven that waits, Con our brief pleasures o’er by rote, The favourite pastime of the Fates.

We smoke, to fancy that we dream, And drink, a moment’s joy to prove, And fain would love, and only seem To love because we cannot love.

Draw back the blinds, put out the light:  ’Tis morning, let the daylight come. God! how the women’s cheeks are white, And how the sunlight strikes us dumb!

 

EMMY.

EMMY’S exquisite youth and her virginal air, Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile, Come to me out of the past, and I see her there As I saw her once for a while.

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