XXII
THESE portraits, darling, are they yours?
And yet there sticks the vital fact
That these, as you, are women. Lures
The devil of the inexact
With subtle leasing? Nay! O nay!
I'll catch him with a cord, draw out
By a bent fish-hook through his snout,
Give to my maiden for a play.
You, they, and dinner and—what else ?—
However unlike, coincide
In composition verified
Of final protoplasmic cells.
Shall this avail to stagger thought,
Confuse the reason, bring to nought
The rosebud, in reflecting: Hem!
What beauty hath the flower and stem?
Carbon we know, and nitrogen,
And oxygen—are these a rose?
But this though everybody knows,
That this should be the same for men
They know not. Death may decompose,
50