Edwin Arnold on Women

“The Musmee has a small brown face,    "Musk-melon seed" its perfect shape: Jetty arch’d eyebrows; nose to grace    The rosy mouth beneath; a nape, And neck, and chin, and smooth, soft cheeks    Carv’d out of sunburn’d ivory, With teeth, which, when she smiles or speaks,    Pearl merchants might come leagues to see!”

“An excellent thing it is when life is leaving,—    Leaving with gloom and gladness, joys and cares,— The strong heart failing, and the high soul grieving    With strangest thoughts, and wild unwonted fears; Then, then a woman's low soft sympathy    Comes like an angel's voice to teach us how to die. But a most excellent thing it is in youth,    When the fond lover hears the loved one's tone, That fears, but longs, to syllable the truth,—    How their two hearts are one, and she his own; It makes sweet human music—oh! the spells    That haunt the trembling tale a bright-eyed maiden tells!”