Pastel: Masks and Faces

By Arthur Symons

The light of our cigarettes

Went and came in the gloom:

It was dark in the little room.

Dark, and then, in the dark,

Sudden, a flash, a glow,

And a hand and a ring I know.

And then, through the dark, a flush

Ruddy and vague, the grace

(A rose!) of her lyric face.