I followed dumb and shrinking like a thief <br />Close in her shadow from the women's guess, <br />Yet ruthlessly betrayed for my cheeks' grief <br />From head to foot in the tall pier--glasses. <br />My vagabond attire, my coat all rags, <br />My tattered plaid stained with the summer's dust, <br />The sash which bound my waist all gaps and jags, <br />With gaiters frayed and such sad shoes as must <br />Have served Ulysses at his journey's close; <br />All these I saw revealed to my disgrace, <br />My hat still crowned with its last Alpine rose, <br />And what she had called my ``John the Baptist's face'' <br />Red with confusion and the rage of youth, <br />I saw it all, the whole remorseless truth.<br /><br />Wilfrid Scawen Blunt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/esther-a-sonnet-sequence-xlv/
