XI
I am a pretty advocate!
My speech has served me ill. Perchance
Silence had served: you now look straight
On that clear evidence of France,
The embroidered garter yonder. Wait!
I had some confidence in fate
Ere I spoke thus. For while I spoke
The old smile, surely helpless, broke
On your tired lips: the old light woke
In your deep eyes: but silence falls
Black, blank : the species that appals,
Not our old silence. I devise
A motto for your miseries :
“There an embroidered garter lies,
And here words—they lie too?” I see
Your intuition of the truth
Is still in its—most charming—youth.
You need that physiology!
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