Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/365

Woman! I hate thee; fly thee—go:
I feel thy hands my hands infold,
And feel them freezing, cold as snow,
As snow thy kisses are as cold.

Ever the same, try, tempters weak!
Other endearments to enthral;
Another world, new pleasures seek,
For such your joys I curse them all.
Your kisses are a lie; a cheat
Is all the tenderness you feign;
Your beauty ugly in deceit,
The enjoyment suffering and pain.

I wish for love, ethereal, high,
For some diviner joy my lot;
For such my heart will imaged sigh,
For such as in the world is not.
And ’t is that meteor light afar,
The phantom that deceived my mind,
The treacherous guide, the vapour star,
That leads me wandering and blind.

Why is my soul for pleasure dead,
And yet alive to grief and care?
Why doom'd in listless stupor laid
This arid loathing still to bear?