First Love.

She herself a sensitive creature,

no wonder her attraction

to one who, in his refinement,

was proud to call himself

..... a poet.

A brief engagement,

a quiet and tasteful wedding,

a fortnight's foreign honeymoon,

and at last together in their own home.

Imagine her fond fascination

on soon witnessing, at first hand,

the phenomenon of inspiration.

She saw the state of intense absorption,

the urgent recourse to pen and paper,

the initial pressurised pause,

and then, relief!, the feverish issue

of word after word after word,

the brow propped upon an open hand

that seemed to shield his sight

from some external glare.

And as he wrote, she came softly near

and sat demurely some paces off,

as if the better to share,

if only by proximity.

in this work of creation.

Spent the first fast flood of thought,

his pen grew still again

and remained so for some while

as he stared intently down.

Shifting her body ever so little,

her chair gave off a trifling sound,

at which he turned abruptly,

the hand dropping from his brow,

whereat she saw the wildness of his eyes

and heard him with great venom say:

'Would you ever go away!'