English poem
Of Joan’S Youth
by Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920)
I WOULD unto my fair restore A simple thing: The flushing cheek she had before! Out-velveting No more, no more By Severn shore, The carmine grape, the moth’s auroral wing.
Ah, say how winds in flooding grass Unmoor the rose; Or guileful ways the salmon pass To sea, disclose; For so, alas, With Love, alas, With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes.