The sun goes down, and with him takes <br />The coarseness of my por attire; <br />The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame <br />Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher. <br /> <br />Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race; <br />You captives of your air-tight halls, <br />Wear out in-doors your sickly days, <br />But leave us the horizon walls. <br /> <br />And if I take you, dames, to task, <br />And say it frankly without guile, <br />Then you are Gypsies in a mask, <br />And I the lady all the while. <br /> <br />If, on the heath, below the moon, <br />I court and play with paler blood, <br />Me false to mine dare whisper none,-- <br />One sallow horseman knows me good. <br /> <br />Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain, <br />For teeth and hair with shopmen deal; <br />My swarthy tint is in the grain, <br />The rocks and forest knoww it real. <br /> <br />The wild air bloweth in out lungs, <br />The keen stars twinkle in our eyes, <br />The birds gave us our wily tongues, <br />The panther in our dances flies. <br /> <br />You doubt we read the stars on high, <br />Nathless we read your fortunes true; <br />The stars may hide in the upper sky, <br />But without glass we fathom you.<br /><br />Ralph Waldo Emerson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-romany-girl/
