Eve's Daughter

I waited in the little sunny room:
The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play,
The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,
And out upon the bay
I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.

"Such an old friend,--she would not make me stay
While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo,
Danaë in her shower! and fit to slay
All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:
Gold hair, that streamed away
As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.
"She would not make me wait!"--but well I know
She took a good half-hour to loose and lay
Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!