Love Brown And Bitter

You know so well how to stay me with vapours Distilled expertly to that unworthy end; You know the poses of your body I love best And that I am cheerful with your head on my breast, You know you please me by disliking one friend; You read up what amuses me in the papers. Who knows me knows I am not of those fools That gets tired of a woman who is kind to them, Yet you know not how stifled you render me By learning me so well, how I long to see An unpractised girl under your clever phlegm, A soul not so letter-perfect in the rules. From the Arabic of John Duncan.