Caprice!

By Robert James DeBurgh (Poet)

Leap! O my Heart's joy,
When e'er my Soul encounters the Beloved!
She, whose eyes are like unto the twin pools at
Beth-el-Ghazar,
Wherein is reflected twicely the risen morning Sun, in the sky,
And whereat also comes to drink the wild Goats of Abandon
Whose pranced steps are like unto the
Bouncing of my Beloved's mattress
When e'er I myself does encounter the Beloved
When e'er I return from the pub of an evening.
And thus prancing and pouncing come I unto the
Divan of my Mistress Leeam
And drunk as I am, drive her wild with the Ram
With its plunging and pounding, just like unto the Goats
Abovementioned
Which prance in Capricious manner from Rock to Crevice
And from Crevice to Rock.
Thus is Love capricious!!

Sebastopol, Crimea, 1890

NOTES ON PROVENANCE:
"Caprice" was provided to The Society by Colonel Victor DesJardins, grandson of Camille DesJardins. The Work was discovered by Col. DesJardins attached to the back of a photograph of his grandmother which he bought at the flea-market in Barbes-Rocheaurt in Paris in 1960.

Col. DesJardins refused to hand over the photograph on the grounds that it would severely damage the Family's Good Name. He was, however, quite happy to part with The Work, free of charge, for the same reasons.....