Only a Smile

Mathilde Blind 1841 (Mannheim) – 1896 (London)



No butterfly whose frugal fare
Is breath of heliotrope and clove,
And other trifles light as air,
Could live on less than doth my love.

That childlike smile that comes and goes
About your gracious lips and eyes,
Hath all the sweetness of the rose,
Which feeds the freckled butterflies.

I feed my love on smiles, and yet
Sometimes I ask, with tears of woe,
How had it been if we had met,
If you had met me long ago,

Before the fast, defacing years
Had made all ill that once was well?
Ah, then your smiling breeds such tears
As Tantalus may weep in hell.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
79

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF XGXG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 561
Words 108
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Mathilde Blind

Mathilde Blind, was a German-born British poet. Her work was praised by Matthew Arnold and French politician and historian Louis Blanc. more…

All Mathilde Blind poems | Mathilde Blind Books

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