Chapter 132: Feigned Anger

From thy regard all womankind Enjoys an equal grace; O thou of wandering fickle mind, I shrink from thine embrace!

One day we silent sulked; he sneezed: The reason well I knew; He thought that I, to speak well pleased, Would say, 'Long life to you!'

I wreathed with flowers one day my brow, The angry tempest lowers; She cries, 'Pray, for what woman now Do you put on your flowers?'

'I love you more than all beside,' 'T was thus I gently spoke; 'What all, what all?' she instant cried; And all her anger woke.

'While here I live, I leave you not,' I said to calm her fears. She cried, 'There, then, I read your thought'; And straight dissolved in tears.

'Each day I called to mind your charms,' 'O, then, you had forgot,' She cried, and then her opened arms, Forthwith embraced me not.

She hailed me when I sneezed one day; But straight with anger seized, She cried; 'Who was the woman, pray, Thinking of whom you sneezed?'

And so next time I checked my sneeze; She forthwith wept and cried, (That woman difficult to please), 'Your thoughts from me you hide'.

I then began to soothe and coax, To calm her jealous mind; 'I see', quoth she, 'to other folks How you are wondrous kind'

I silent sat, but thought the more, And gazed on her. Then she Cried out, 'While thus you eye me o'er, Tell me whose form you see'.