Love Brown and Bitter

You know so well how to stay me with vapours

Distilled expertly to that unworthy end;

You know the poses of your body I love best

And that I am cheerful with your head on my breast,

You know you please me by disliking one friend;

You read up what amuses me in the papers.

Who knows me knows I am not of those fools

That gets tired of a woman who is kind to them,

Yet you know not how stifled you render me

By learning me so well, how I long to see

An unpractised girl under your clever phlegm,

A soul not so letter-perfect in the rules.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.