Orientation

When the young ladies of the boarding-school take the air,They walk in pairs, each holding a blush-red parasol against the sun.From my window they look like an ambulating parterreOf roses, I cannot tell one from one.

There is a certain young person I dream of by night,And paint by day on little two-by-three inch squaresOf ivory. Which is she? Which of all the parasols in sightCovers the blithe, mocking face which stares;At me from twenty miniatures, confusing the singleness of my delight?

You know my window well enough—the fourth from the corner. Oh, you know.Slant your parasol a bit this way, if you please,And take for yourself the very correct bowI make toward the line of demure young ladiesPerambulating the street in a neat row.It is true I have never seen beneath your parasol,Therefore my miniatures resemble one another not at all.

You must pick yourself like a button-hole bouquet,And lift the parasol to my face one day,And let me see you laughing at the sun—Or at me. Then I will choose the oneOf my twenty miniatures most like youAnd destroy the others, with which I shall have nothing more to do.