She was fair as a Passion-flower, <br />(But little of love he knew.) <br />Her lucent eyes were like amber wine, <br />And her eyelids stained with blue. <br /> <br />He called them the Gates of Fair Desire, <br />And the Lakes where Beauty lay, <br />But I looked into them once, and saw <br />The eyes of Beasts of Prey. <br /> <br />He praised her teeth, that were small and white <br />As lilies upon his lawn, <br />While I remembered a tiger's fangs <br />That met in a speckled fawn. <br /> <br />She had her way; a lover the more, <br />And I had a friend the less. <br />For long there was nothing to do but wait <br />And suffer his happiness. <br /> <br />But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss <br />And nestle it in her breast, <br />For dead, he is drifting down to sea, <br />And his own hand wrought his rest.<br /><br />Laurence Hope<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/among-the-rice-fields/
