"Mister, I do not like the task.
'Tis dull to-day, you're tired, too.
But, Mister, I've a thing to ask;--
_Am I not beautiful?_ Speak true."
Now, God save all poor tutor-men
From Innocence so rapt and sly,
And send the plainest student-girls
To one so passion-starved as I.
She sat within my student's room
In the twilight hour when the shadows stir;
Red lights of sunset swirled the gloom
And rested, glimmering, on her hair.
Coil upon coil it wreathed her crown
In a crushing aureole of flame.
And her brows of alabaster shone
As pure as Mary's of Bethlehem.
Her eyes,--I never knew their hue--
Drowsed, smouldering, in the burning dusk.
And somewhere out of the earth's view
A planet sang, and the air breathed musk.