Florian Boy Naked ##BEST##
His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice,But bland the smile that like a wrinkling windOn glassy water drove his cheek in lines;A little dry old man, without a star,Not like a king: three days he feasted us,And on the fourth I spake of why we came,And my betroth'd. 'You do us, Prince,' he said,Airing a snowy hand and signet gem,'All honour. We remember love ourselvesIn our sweet youth: there did a compact passLong summers back, a kind of ceremony-I think the year in which our olives fail'd.I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart,With my full heart: but there were widows here,Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;They fed her theories, in and out of placeMaintaining that with equal husbandryThe woman were an equal to the man.They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang;Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk;Nothing but this; my very ears were hotTo hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held,Was all in all: they had but been, she thought,As children; they must lose the child, assumeThe woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,Too awful, sure, for what they treated of,But all she is and does is awful; odesAbout this losing of the child; and rhymesAnd dismal lyrics, prophesying changeBeyond all reason: these the women sang;And they that know such things--I sought but peace;No critic I--would call them masterpieces:They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon,A certain summer-palace which I haveHard by your father's frontier: I said no,Yet being an easy man, gave it: and there,All wild to found an UniversityFor maidens, on the spur she fled; and moreWe know not, --only this: they see no men,Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twinsHer brethren, tho' they love her, look upon herAs on a kind of paragon; and I(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breedDispute betwixt myself and mine: but since(And I confess with right) you think me boundIn some sort, I can give you letters to her;And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chanceAlmost at naked nothing.'Thus the king; And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slurWith garrulous ease and oily courtesiesOur formal compact, yet, not less (all fretsBut chafing me on fire to find my bride)Went forth again with both my friends. We rodeMany a long league back to the North. At lastFrom hills, that look'd across a land of hope,We dropt with evening on a rustic townSet in a gleaming river's crescent-curve;Close at the boundary of the liberties;There, enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine hostTo council, plied him with his richest wines,And show'd the late-writ letters of the king.
florian boy naked