Silverpoints — The Barber

I

I dreamed I was a barber; and there went Beneath my hand, oh!

manes extravagant.

Beneath my trembling fingers, many a mask Of many a pleasant girl.

It was my task To gild their hair, carefully, strand by strand;

To paint their eyebrows with a timid hand;

To draw a bodkin, from a vase of kohl, Through the closed lashes; pencils from a bowl Of sepia to paint them underneath;

To blow upon their eyes with a soft breath.

They lay them back and watched the leaping bands.

II

The dream grew vague.

I moulded with my hands The mobile breasts, the valley; and the waist I touched; and pigments reverently placed Upon their thighs in sapient spots and stains, Beryls and crysolites and diaphanes, And gems whose hot harsh names are never said.

I was a masseur; and my fingers bled With wonder as I touched their awful limbs.

III

Suddenly, in the marble trough, there seems O, last of my pale, mistresses, Sweetness!

A twylipped scarlet pansie.

My caress Tinges thy steelgray eyes to violet.

Adown thy body skips the pit-a-pat Of treatment once heard in a hospital For plagues that fascinate, but half appal.

IV

So, at the sound, the blood of me stood cold.

Thy chaste hair ripened into sullen gold.

The throat, the shoulders, swelled and were uncouth.

The breasts rose up and offered each a mouth.

And on the belly pallid blushes crept, That maddened me, until I laughed and wept.

MISHKA