Accommodating love with “something still
Of the sea,” he only meant
To decorate a failure spent
Upon Corinna’s bed, from which he went
Away too suddenly to serve it well.
Yet with her for an hour the Cavalier
Discovered comfort from the cold,
And found it politic to hold
A warming world against him, though he told
Corinna’s maid to call him well before
The King would ride, and time itself return.
The lovers closeted apace
And fell together-an embrace
That gathered each unbidden sense to grace,
Though not the kind Corinna’s fan could learn.
Thereat the summons of a little bell
Inconsiderately spread
Silver tumult overhead.
Corinna laughed, and tidied up her bed;
The laureate subsided with the swell.
In truth, love had a semblance of the sea,
Showing less among the fair
Ripples of Corinna’s hair
Than sharing in the ignorant and bare
Condition of its wreck: a breaking free.
Corinna stirred. She was alone, so closed
Her cabinet. Perhaps she thought
How Venus’ beauty had been wrought
To birth upon the ocean, later caught
With Mars in Vulcan’s net. Corinna dozed.
That night, at Margate, the low water ran
White on every knocking stone,
Embittered almost, as if one
God more were gone. It was the very tone
And timbre-somewhat louder-of a man.
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