T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Early Love
By Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Nicolson) (18651904)(From Last Poems, 1905) WHO says I wrong thee, my half-opened rose? | |
Little he knows of thee or me, or love.— | |
I am so tender of thy fragile youth | |
Yea, in my hours of wildest ecstasy, | |
Keeping close-bitted each careering sense. | 5 |
Only I give mine eyes unmeasured law | |
To feed them where they will, and their delight | |
Was curbed at first, until thy tender shame | |
Died in the bearing of thy first born joy. | |
I am not cruel, my half-opened rose, | 10 |
Though in the sunshine of my own desire | |
I have uncurled thy petals to the light | |
And fed the tendrils of thy dawning sense | |
With delicate caresses, till they leave | |
Thee tremulous with the newness of thy joy, | 15 |
Sharing thy lover’s fire with innocent flame. | |
Others will wrong thee, that I well foresee, | |
Being a man, knowing my fellow men, | |
And they who, knowing, would blame my love of thee | |
Contentedly will see thy beauty given, | 20 |
When the world judges thou art ripe to wed,— | |
To the rough rites of marriage, to the pain | |
And grievous weariness of child-getting,— | |
This shall be right and licit in their eyes— | |
But it would break my heart, were I alive. | 25 |
Yea, this will be; many will doubtless share | |
The rose whose bud has been my one delight, | |
And I shall not be there to shield my flower. | |
Yet, I have taught thee of the ways of men, | |
Much I have learnt in cities and in courts, | 30 |
Winnowed to suit thy tender brain,—is thine, | |
Thus Life shall find thee, not all unprepared | |
To face its callous, subtle cruelties. | |
Still,—it will profit little; I discern | |
Thou art of those whose love will prove their curse, | 35 |
—Thou sayest thou lovest me, to thy delight? | |
Nay, little one, it is not love as yet. | |
Dear as thou art, and lovely, thou canst not love, | |
Thy later loves shall show the truth of this. | |
Ay, by some subtle signs I know full well | 40 |
That thou are capable of that great love | |
Whose glory has the light of unknown heavens, | |
And makes hot Hell for those who harbour it. | |
Naught I can say could save thee from thyself, | |
Ah, were I half my age! Yet even that, | 45 |
Had been too old for thy sweet thirteenth year, | |
Still, thou art happy now, and glad thine eyes, | |
When, as the lilac evening gains the sky, | |
I lay thee, ’twixt thine own soft hair and me, | |
Kissing thy senses into soft delight. | 50 |
Ruffling the petals of my half-closed rose | |
With tender touches, and perpetual care | |
That no wild moment of mine own delight | |
Deep in the flower’s heart,—should set the fruit. | |
Ah, in the days to come, it well may be, | 55 |
When thou shalt see thy beauty stained and torn | |
By the harsh sequel of some future love, | |
Thy thoughts shall stray to thy first lover’s grave, | |
And thou shalt murmur, “Ay, but that was love. | |
They were most wrong who said he did me wrong. | 60 |
Only I was too young to understand.” | |