But you will thank me soon for leaving you:
'Tis the best courtesy I can do.
'Tis the best courtesy I can do.
Lascelles Abercrombie - Emblems of Love
I've seen a gull
That hovered with beak pointing and eyes fixt
Where, underneath its swaying flight, some fish
Was trifling, fooling in the waves: then, souse!
And the gull has fed. And love on us has fed.
_Morris_.
Indeed 'tis a sudden coming; but I grieve
To hear you make of love a cruelty.
Sweetheart, it shall be nothing cruel to you!
You shall not fear, in doing what love bids,
Ever to know yourself unmaidenly.
For see! here's my first kiss; and all my love
Is signed in it; and it is on your hand. --
Is that a thing to fear? --But it were best
I go now. This should be a privacy,
Not even your lover near, this hour of first
Strange knowledge that you have accepted love.
I think you would feel me prying, if I stayed
While your heart falters into full perceiving
That you are plighted now forever mine.
God bless you, Jean, my sweetheart. --Not a word?
But you will thank me soon for leaving you:
'Tis the best courtesy I can do.
[_He goes_.
_Jean_.
O, and I thought it was my love at last!
I thought, from the look he had last night, I'd found
That great, brave, irresistible love! --But this!
It's like a man deformed, with half his limbs.
Am I never to have the love I dream and need,
Pouring over me, into me, winds of fire?
HAMISH _comes in_.
_Hamish_.
Well? What's the mood to-night? --The girl's been crying!
This should be something queer.
_Jean_.
It's you are to blame:
You brought him here!
That hovered with beak pointing and eyes fixt
Where, underneath its swaying flight, some fish
Was trifling, fooling in the waves: then, souse!
And the gull has fed. And love on us has fed.
_Morris_.
Indeed 'tis a sudden coming; but I grieve
To hear you make of love a cruelty.
Sweetheart, it shall be nothing cruel to you!
You shall not fear, in doing what love bids,
Ever to know yourself unmaidenly.
For see! here's my first kiss; and all my love
Is signed in it; and it is on your hand. --
Is that a thing to fear? --But it were best
I go now. This should be a privacy,
Not even your lover near, this hour of first
Strange knowledge that you have accepted love.
I think you would feel me prying, if I stayed
While your heart falters into full perceiving
That you are plighted now forever mine.
God bless you, Jean, my sweetheart. --Not a word?
But you will thank me soon for leaving you:
'Tis the best courtesy I can do.
[_He goes_.
_Jean_.
O, and I thought it was my love at last!
I thought, from the look he had last night, I'd found
That great, brave, irresistible love! --But this!
It's like a man deformed, with half his limbs.
Am I never to have the love I dream and need,
Pouring over me, into me, winds of fire?
HAMISH _comes in_.
_Hamish_.
Well? What's the mood to-night? --The girl's been crying!
This should be something queer.
_Jean_.
It's you are to blame:
You brought him here!
