On The Brink. by Charles Stuart Calverley — Stanza

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On The Brink.

by Charles Stuart Calverley

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.