free-verse20 lines
Among the Rice Fields
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)She was fair as a Passion-flower,
(But little of love he knew.)
Her lucent eyes were like amber wine,
And her eyelids stained with blue.
He called them the Gates of Fair Desire,
And the Lakes where Beauty lay,
But I looked into them once, and saw
The eyes of Beasts of Prey.
He praised her teeth, that were small and white
As lilies upon his lawn,
While I remembered a tiger's fangs
That met in a speckled fawn.
She had her way; a lover the more,
And I had a friend the less.
For long there was nothing to do but wait
And suffer his happiness.
But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss
And nestle it in her breast,
For dead, he is drifting down to sea,
And his own hand wrought his rest