GIRL (_laughingly_, _as she hangs lais about his neck_)

Well, there’s your band; and since you are so kind,

To purchase all my flowers, I’ve half a mind

To favour you with, not the Hula, sir,

But something more refined, and prettier.

I’ll teach it to you; ask the band out there

To play the Hula Kui dancing air;

Then follow all I do, and copy me.

This is the way it starts, now one, two, three.

[_After the dance ends_, RALPH _approaches the_ GIRL _with tense face and

speaks with great seriousness_.]

Girl, though I do not even know your name,

Yet here I stand, and offer you my own;

It was for you I came, for you alone,

Across the half world. I have never known

Forgetfulness, since first your face I saw.

In coming here, I but obeyed Love’s law;

I thought it fancy, passion, or caprice;

I know now it is _Love_.

Poems of Experience · 第 104 / 111 题