Dora Sigerson Shorter

Love

Deep in the moving depths
   Of yellow wine,
I swore I’d drown your face,
   O love of mine;
All clad in yellow hue,
   So fair to see,
You crouched within my cup
   And laughed at me.

Twice o’er a learned page
   I turned and tossed,
For would I not forget
   The love I lost.
All stern and robed in gloom,
   You read it too,
I could not see the words—
   Saw only you.

Within the hungry chase
   I thought to kill
You, love, who haunted thus
   Without my will,
But in the gentle gaze
   Of fawn and deer,
Your eyes disarmed my hand,
   And shook my spear.

Beneath a maid’s dark lash
   I swore you’d drown,
Sink in the laughing blue—
   Give in, go down:
But no! you bathèd there
   Right joyously,
And from her liquid eyes
   You laughed at me.