Across the Street

With lash on cheek, she comes and goes;
I watch her when she little knows:
I wonder if she dreams of it.
Sitting and working at my rhymes,
I weave into my verse at times
Her sunny hair, or gleams of it.

Upon her window-ledge is set
A box of flowering mignonette;
Morning and eve she tends to them —
The senseless flowers, that do not care
About that loosened strand of hair,
As prettily she bends to them.

If I could once contrive to get
Into that box of mignonette
Some morning when she tends to them—
She comes! I see the rich blood rise
From throat to cheek!—down go the eyes,
Demurely, as she bends to them!