Eve’s Daughter

I WAITED in the little sunny room:

The cool breeze waved the window-lace at play,

The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,

And out upon the bay

I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.

“Such an old friend—she would not make me stay

While she bound up her hair.” I turned, and lo,

Danæ in her shower! and fit to slay

All a man’s hoarded prudence at a blow:

Gold hair, that streamed away

As round some nymph a sunlit fountain’s flow.

“She would not make me wait!”—but well I know

She took a good half-hour to loose and lay

Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!