dots-menu
×

Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from Stella Maris: Je suis trop jeune

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

John Addington Symonds (1840–1893)

Extracts from Stella Maris: Je suis trop jeune

LEAVE me awhile; I am too young to love;

My maiden fancies are enough for me:

Leave me awhile; too soon will passion move

The silent springs of my virginity.

You break my dream, wither my girlhood’s flower,

With vows and kisses and soft whispered sighs;

And offer what? The homage of an hour,

The sad sweet service of adoring eyes.

And then you fly. ’Tis honor bids you go:

You think it virtue to have left me maid;

You smile “Uncropped by me her rose shall blow,

Her bridal kiss on worthier lips be laid.”

But give me, stranger, give me back, I pray,

The heart’s ease that was mine but yesterday!