Working discreetly to the point debated
By steps rhetorical I spare to name;
In other words,--he broke the matter gently.
Meanwhile, the lady looked at him intently,

Wistfully, sadly,--and it put him out,
Although he went on steadily, but faster.
There were some maladies he'd read about
Which seemed, at first, most difficult to master;
They looked intractable at times, no doubt,
But all they needed was a little plaster;
This was a thing physicians long had pondered,
Considered, weighed ... and then ... and then he wandered.

('Tis so embarrassing to have before you
A silent auditor, with candid eyes;
With lips that speak no sentence to restore you,
And aspect, generally, of pained surprise;
Then, if we add that all these things adore you,
'Tis really difficult to syllogise:--
Of course it mattered not to him a feather,
But still he wished ... they'd not been left together.)

"Of one," he said, continuing, "of these
The young especially should be suspicious;
Seeing no ailment in Hippocrates
Could be at once so tedious and capricious;
No seeming apple of Hesperides
More fatal, deadlier, and more delicious--
Pernicious,--he should say,--for all its seeming...."
It seemed to him he simply was blaspheming.

If she had only turned askance, or uttered
Word in reply, or trifled with her brooch,
Or sighed, or cried, grown petulant, or fluttered,
He might (in metaphor) have "called his coach";
Yet still, while patiently he hemmed and stuttered,
She wore her look of wondering reproach;
(And those who read the "Shakespeare of Romances"
Know of what stuff a girl's "dynamic glance" is.)

"But there was still a cure, the wise insisted,
In Love,--or rather, in Philosophy.
Philosophy--no, Love--at best existed
But as an ill for that to remedy:
There was no knot so intricately twisted,
There was no riddle but at last should be
By Love--he meant Philosophy--resolved...."
The truth is, he was getting quite involved.

O sovran Love! how far thy power surpasses
Aught that is taught of Logic or the Schools!
Here was a man, "far seen" in all the classes,
Strengthened of precept, fortified of rules,
Mute as the least articulate of asses;
Nay, at an age when every passion cools,
Conscious