- Since I have seen you do those intimate things
- That other men but dream of; lull asleep
- The sinister dark forest of your hair
- And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast
- Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep;
- Since I have seen your stocking swallow up,
- A swift black wind, the flame of your pale foot,
- And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk
- Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair
- I have not troubled very much with food
- And wine has seemed like water from a well;
- Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames;
- All other girls grow dull as painted flowers,
- Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies
- Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves
- Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.
Rickword (1898-1982) wrote this when he was a quite a young man; it was published in his first collection, Behind the Eyes, in 1921. Those last four lines build up an amazing excitement out of prepositions and conjunctions:
...as...,
Or...like...
...in...of...
...by...that...behind...
