'I WAS born to be a merchant,
And the merchandise I'd barter
Are my kisses with some beauty,
On the white mart of her breast;
And a mart, whose architectures,
In their fanciful provoking,
Far out-do the sporting satyrs
'Mid the foliage, apes and parrots,
Round the old town market-place.
And her bosom !-and to lean me
At my ease like any Persian,
With a long pipe curling round him,
Set with turquoise, and gold net-work,
By his rose-confect and sweetmeats,
Piled in azure-pattern'd saucers,
On a mother-o'-pearl table,
In the cool bazaars you read of,
Somewhere in the white-hot east.
And her laughter, like a fountain,
Shall leap up and run around me,
And her arms, all rose-bud dimples,
Swung about as timed to rebecks,
Shall off-curtain cool the sun.
And the scents of hemp and poppy,
From the many blossom'd nitches,
Fresh azaleas and red lilies,
Full of scent and deep with slumber,
Set me dreaming dreams delicious
Of this wonderful embossment,
And the world of wanton fancies
On this bosom, for my mart.
Beat and throb ! all other thinking
Is as distant as the murmur
Of the traffic down the half-light,
Where the white sun, through a crevice,
Streams along the swarthy eunuchs,
With the guttural-tongued strangers,
And the amulets a-jingling
Round the eyes of large-lipp'd women,
Draped and tall, with sliding footsteps,
Like the stir of silent waters,
When the red fish flash across them.
And the world without is nothing;
Great hot sun and garish house-tops,
Where the vine-leaves simmer, crackling
'Long grey walls, and dusky whiteness,
Where the half-cloth'd men lie basking,
At all corners-Oh! 'tis nothing
Hardly thought of, never dreamt of,
In the drowsiness and coolness
Of my mart so savoury scented,
Spikenard rose and ambergris.
Half-asleep I look-believe me!
I've an eye alive for barter!
On her mouth a luscious fruit-stall
I but clink one coin of kissing,
To get back a feast of peaches,
Ripe rich fruit-Ay ! ripe to bursting
To be bitten, till the kernels,
Snowy white and streak'd with crimson,
Ice and thrill me back again.
In her eyes' translucent oceans,
Clear blue-purple to all soundings,
I can catch the gleam of opals,
Pearls and many precious jewels
Twinkling, deep, and stones full-colour'd,
Blue and large and purple sapphires
I must fathom for by looking,
Every look a heart-full brimming,
Rich with scintillating treasures,
Dredg'd up from her very being,
Down and deep from secret holies
Man has never seen or heard of;
Till the very strangeness startles,
And I tremble, fear the drowning,
And up-start again to light.
In her hair's a goodly dowry,
More a mine of wealth exhaustless-
Gold, such gold so rich and yellow-
Orange gold, and who so skilful
As your merchant here for coining
Rings and jewellery and ear-gems,
In the fittest filagrees?
Here's an anklet round our ankles,
Round our waists a tighten'd girdle,
Where my fingers still go weaving
Paraments in quaint devices,
As were never seen or heard of
In the chuckling looms of Venice,
Or the shimmery flowery fabric
Fair the Indian maidens broider
With their lotus-blooms and roses
Round their lithe brown limbs to circle,
Smooth, that it were more than madness
Just to see, nor feel nor fondle.
All these kisses and gold coining
She must change me now for others,
At a usury tremendous—
Thousands every kiss I gave her,
Millions she can never pay me !
Oh! the sharper, I must have them!
Oh! the debtor, kissing, kissing!
Still a life of kissing wanted!
Pound of flesh for pound of kisses!
Flesh red-white to kiss and cherish !
All her body milk and roses,
Pine and piment, wine and honey,
Just to sip of and be merry!
But if yet she cannot pay me,
Who knows I may kiss the nearer,
Know and kiss her very soul out,
Find it pure as myrrh and incense
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