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.