Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=355299" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>On The Brink</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=355299" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I WATCH’D her as she stoop’d to pluck <br> A wild flower in her hair to twine; <br>And wish’d that it had been my luck <br> To call her mine; <br> <br>Anon I heard her rate with mad,<br> Mad words her babe within its cot, <br>And felt particularly glad <br> That it had not. <br> <br>I knew (such subtle brains have men!) <br> That she was uttering what she shouldn’t;<br>And thought that I would chide, and then <br> I thought I would n’t. <br> <br>Few could have gaz’d upon that face, <br> Those pouting coral lips, and chided: <br>A Rhadamanthus, in my place,<br> Had done as I did. <br> <br>For wrath with which our bosoms glow <br> Is chain’d there oft by Beauty’s spell; <br>And, more than that, I did not know <br> The widow well. <br> <br>So the harsh phrase pass’d unreprov’d: <br> Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)— <br>I drank, unutterably mov’d, <br> Her beauty in. <br> <br>And to myself I murmur’d low, <br> As on her upturn’d face and dress <br>The moonlight fell, “Would she say No,— <br> By chance, or Yes?” <br> <br>She stood so calm, so like a ghost, <br> Betwixt me and that magic moon, <br>That I already was almost <br> A finish’d coon. <br> <br>But when she caught adroitly up <br> And sooth’d with smiles her little daughter; <br>And gave it, if I ’m right, a sup<br> Of barley-water; <br> <br>And, crooning still the strange, sweet lore <br> Which only mothers’ tongues can utter, <br>Snow’d with deft hand the sugar o’er <br> Its bread-and-butter;<br> <br>And kiss’d it clingingly (ah, why <br> Don’t women do these things in private?)— <br>I felt that if I lost her, I <br> Should not survive it. <br> <br>And from my mouth the words nigh flew,— <br> The past, the future, I forgat ’em,— <br>“Oh, if you ’d kiss me as you do <br> That thankless atom!” <br> <br>But this thought came ere yet I spake, <br> And froze the sentence on my lips: <br>“They err who marry wives that make <br> Those little slips.” <br> <br>It came like some familiar rhyme, <br> Some copy to my boyhood set; <br>And that ’s perhaps the reason I’m <br> Unmarried yet. <br> <br>Would she have own’d how pleas’d she was, <br> And told her love with widow’s pride? <br>I never found out that, because <br> I never tried. <br> <br>Be kind to babes and beasts and birds, <br> Hearts may be hard though lips are coral; <br>And angry words are angry words: <br> And that ’s the moral.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Charles+Stuart+Calverley">Charles Stuart Calverley</a></strong></div>