Читать книгу The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell - James Russell Lowell - Страница 197

Some sort of heart I know is hers—

I chanced to feel her pulse one night;

A brain she has that never errs,

And yet is never nobly right;

It does not leap to great results,

But, in some corner out of sight

Suspects a spot of latent blight,

And, o'er the impatient infinite,

She hargains, haggles, and consults.

Her eye—it seems a chemic test

And drops upon you like an acid; 11

It bites you with unconscious zest,

So clear and bright, so coldly placid;

It holds you quietly aloof,

It holds—and yet it does not win you;

It merely puts you to the proof

And sorts what qualities are in you:

It smiles, but never brings you nearer,

It lights—her nature draws not nigh;

'Tis but that yours is growing clearer 20

To her assays;—yes, try and try,

You'll get no deeper than her eye.

There, you are classified: she's gone

Far, far away into herself;

Each with its Latin label on,

Your poor components, one by one,

Are laid upon their proper shelf

In her compact and ordered mind,

And what of you is left behind

Is no more to her than the wind;

In that clear brain, which, day and night, 31

No movement of the heart e'er jostles,

Her friends are ranged on left and right—

Here, silex, hornblende, sienite;

There, animal remains and fossils.

And yet, O subtile analyst,

That canst each property detect

Of mood or grain, that canst untwist

Each tangled skein of intellect,

And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare 40

Each mental nerve more fine than air—

O brain exact, that in thy scales

Canst weigh the sun and never err,

For once thy patient science fails,

One problem still defies thy art;—

Thou never canst compute for her

The distance and diameter

Of any simple human heart.