Classic Poem

Strange, dear Miranda, though your lips are cool
Those eyelids are so warm. This was a fact
Beyond discrimination, until learned
By kissing — which I do. Mir.
The eyes themselves
Are feverish with looking, sweet my lord. Ferd.
Lips can be cool, for they've some satisfaction:
But, oh, poor eyes, that gaze and gaze and gaze
And never can be filled! Mir.
Why do you love me?
Tell quibblingly and punctually why,
And itemize each tender circumstance. Ferd.
First, then, that thou art singular; thyself;
Dissimilar from other women; frank
To say what's in the heart. When thou art bold
It is the natural appetite of blood;
When modest...( the time of four syllables is here excerpted for a gaze of tenderness, or a brief embrace )...it is not.
The modesty of custom and device. Mir.
Are not all women so? — Thou know'st them well,
So tutor me their manners. — Are they fair? Ferd.
I have forgotten. Mir.
Conceit me here: extravagant from my sex,
Companioned by the glow-worm and the ouph,
What shall I guess of ladies' tires and fangles?
Alas, poor island weed! — More saucier kirtles,
Quaint gowns and broidered garnish, as I guess,
Adorns the beauties of your father's court. Ferd.
Nay, let them suit themselves. What furniture
You choose to prink withal, shall be the formal:
Most properest wear, since you inhabit it. Mir.
Yet stay me hid on ship, my lord, until
I haberdash and make me brave provision —
Such muniment of ruffs and fardingales
And pretty tricking as becomes a queen ...
Shall we be happy, King and Queen in Naples?
This sole sea-rounded life is all I know,
I fear the buzz and burthen of that world. Ferd.
You'll be my island still, a dear, dear island
Lost in my ocean love, across whose circle
No other bark shall steer. Mir.
I am my sex's outlaw: humorous guiles
And woman ways my father redes me of
I have no skill in; nay, I only know
To give myself where I would be received.
— Are women kind to women? Ferd.
I would not have you learn that knavish world.
We'll keep in our small island of the mind:
The warm wide sands we'll sprinkle, grain by grain;
Hearken the lustred firestorm in the night
And only lie the closer. Oh, an island
Tropical indeed! Built, barnacled,
With words, accrete and artifexed like corals.
What said the mage your father? All's a show,
Our lives a dreamy fluxion; mind itself
Merely an island in a swim of sleep,
A swound, a drowse, a coma —
Ha, we're commas,
Pointing some antique sentence, whose purport,
Aye, and authority too, are past our ken. Mir.
Words are pale comforters; yet more, much more!
Might we, on our reef seclude, grow weary?
By very closeness tedious to ourselves? Ferd.
Brave honesty, who knows? or who could know?
Though nature hath us in her dainty toil,
Yet beauty is. I guess just how, in sleep,
Your hand, this small brown boyish-hardened hand.
Nests like a thrushbird on your shoulder's curve.
A tawny little bird for such white perching. Mir.
O dear and wicked words, that make the world
Seem lovelier than it is! Ferd.
Dear, underprize not words: they have huge moment,
And there's my pain. Thronged among words, poor punctual,
I feel the press. Honour's a massy word,
And Fame , and Truth , and Love — all words of heft;
But the curious comma screws himself in vain
To overpeer the shoulders of those words
And see the sentence whole, and where it tends. Master.

Sir-reverence, gentles. — What, more cozenage?
More siren stuff? Or do I surely see
The drenched king's drownded son? Ferd.
Sooth, shipman, it is I. Master.
Od's nouns, here's whoreson work for decent ships.
If haply I win back to Naples gulph
And anchor my tall carrack at her ease,
Then may I founder of our civic scald
Ere any wind that flaws shall plump my canvas
Into these elvish regions. Ferd.
Cheerly, good master. Why so curst? Master.
Curst, is it? This comes of a crack-brained prating boteson. A' should anchor his fluky tongue on better holding-ground. No bottom of my regiment ever fell foul before. Our Lady of Sicily , marry what a sweet bulk: Great Harry herself was ne'er more wieldy. No nimbler vessel hath brooked a countering sea, Mir.
But, stout master, is not all rigged anew,
And trim afloat? For so, at least, I heard. Master.
Aye; but what manner foolery is this?
First my poor craft is split — split like a crumpet,
Indentured on a fanged and toothy shoal
That leaps beneath her bilge.
Then, after some strange interim and nightmare
I see her fresh repaired, refit — but how?
I come ashore: the very greenwood twangles,
Mad music shrills in trees, and thunder claps
In a clean sky. All this is ultra reason.
Sir, I'm with child to have you all inshipped,
Gather my silly swabs and canvas-climbers,
Cask me sweet water, and up hook, away! Ferd ( to Mir. )
This is excellent proper to his mystery. Blame him not. Mir.
Brave captain, I admire not at your trouble:
These matters the event shall explicate. Master.
I'll hope so. But my thought is for the owners —
They'll ask the why of all this new-rigg'd tackle,
This innovated gear; and questions moe.
How shall I make accompt? — And plainly, Sir,
If there are native wenches on this island,
As your enticive company suggests,
Stay them exempt till I recall my sailors.
Those crack-hemps are on loose, and in a heyday
Their sea-sharp'd gust is like to turn toward punks.
— I'll shog. I bid you make good speed aboard. Ferd.

He is the absey-book of his brave art:
The shipman's thought is ever of his ship. Mir.
I like him better for't. How excellent
To see him stare when all these accidents
Are opened by my father. And meanwhile
Let's to the cell, and play a round at chess.