Poem by George Meredith

Modern Love. Sonnet 7. She Issues Radiant from Her Dressing-room

She issues radiant from her dressing-room,
Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere:
-- By stirring up a lower, much I fear!
How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom!
That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls
Can make known women torturingly fair;
The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair,
Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls.
His art can take the eyes from out my head,
Until I see with eyes of other men;
While deeper knowledge crouches in its den,
And sends a spark up: -- is it true we are wed?
Yea! filthiness of body is most vile,
But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse.
The former, it were not so great a curse
To read on the steel-mirror of her smile. 

1. Modern Love. Sonnet 16. In our Old Shipwrecked Days
2. Modern Love. Sonnet 38. Give to Imagination
3. Unknown Fair Faces
4. Modern Love. Sonnet 40. I Bade my Lady Think what She Might Mean
5. Modern Love. Sonnet 6. It Chanced His Lips did Meet Her Forehead Cool

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