A VISIT

You came with your small tapering flame of passion

Thinly burning like a nun's desire,

Your eyes in slim and half-expectant fashion

Faintly painting what your veins require

With little pallid pyramids of fire.

So very small and unfulfilled you sat,

Building a little talk to keep you there,

Your face and body pointed like a cat,

Your legs not reaching down from any chair,

Your thoughts not really reaching anywhere;

So dumb and tiny — yet Love guessed your mood,

And pressed his phial in its fervent bed,

And poured his thrilling philtre in my blood,

And all his lustre on your body shed,

And hot enamel on the words you said;

Your littleness became a monstrous thing,

A rank retort, a hot and waiting vat,

Your eyes green-copper like a snake in spring,

And lusty-bold your laying off your hat,

And fell your purpose like a hungry cat;

The dark fell on us through our narrowed eyes,

The heat lashed up around us from the floor,

Encrimsoning the lips of our surprise

To sway like music, and like burning pour

Across the truth that parted us before.