Among the Rice Fields

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <p id="id00048" style="margin-top: 2em">Among the Rice Fields</p> <p id="id00049" style="margin-top: 2em">She was fair as a Passion-flower,<br/> (But little of love he knew.)<br/> Her lucent eyes were like amber wine,<br/> And her eyelids stained with blue.<br/></p> <p id="id00050">He called them the Gates of Fair Desire,<br/> And the Lakes where Beauty lay,<br/> But I looked into them once, and saw<br/> The eyes of Beasts of Prey.<br/></p> <p id="id00051">He praised her teeth, that were small and white<br/> As lilies upon his lawn,<br/> While I remembered a tiger's fangs<br/> That met in a speckled fawn.<br/></p> <p id="id00052">She had her way; a lover the more,<br/> And I had a friend the less.<br/> For long there was nothing to do but wait<br/> And suffer his happiness.<br/></p> <p id="id00053">But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss<br/> And nestle it in her breast,<br/> For dead, he is drifting down to sea,<br/> And his own hand wrought his rest<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />