Modern Love: IX

He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles

So masterfully rude, that he would grieve

To see the helpless delicate thing receive

His guardianship through certain dark defiles.

Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?

But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’

He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near.

She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’

And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned

Her gentle body near him, looking up;

And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup,

He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.

Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam

Of heaven’s circle-glory! Here they shape

To squeeze like an intoxicating grape –

I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.