Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume II. Love. 1904. | | | | V. Cautions and Complaints | | Constancy | | Anonymous |
| | | ONE eve of beauty, when the sun | |
| Was on the streams of Guadalquiver, | |
| To gold converting, one by one, | |
| The ripples of the mighty river, | |
| Beside me on the bank was seated | 5 |
| A Seville girl, with auburn hair, | |
| And eyes that might the world have cheated,— | |
| A wild, bright, wicked, diamond pair! | |
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| She stooped, and wrote upon the sand, | |
| Just as the loving sun was going, | 10 |
| With such a soft, small, shining hand, | |
| I could have sworn ’t was silver flowing. | |
| Her words were three, and not one more, | |
| What could Diana’s motto be? | |
| The siren wrote upon the shore,— | 15 |
| “Death, not inconstancy!” | |
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| And then her two large languid eyes | |
| So turned on mine, that, devil take me! | |
| I set the air on fire with sighs, | |
| And was the fool she chose to make me! | 20 |
| Saint Francis would have been deceived | |
| With such an eye and such a hand; | |
| But one week more, and I believed | |
| As much the woman as the sand. | | | | |
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