T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Sonnets to AureliaXXVII. “I must remember now how once I woke”
By Robert Nichols (1893–1944)(From Aurelia & Other Poems, 1920) |
I MUST remember now how once I woke | |
| To find the harsh lamplight stream upon her bed, | |
| The ceiling tremble in its giddy smoke, | |
| And on the wall the agile spider spread, | |
| To hear the reverberate vault of silence shake | 5 |
| Beneath the hollow crash of midnight’s toll, | |
| Whose profound strokes waned impotent to break | |
| The charnel stillness of the city’s soul. | |
| These I remember, but would more forget | |
| What is most fixed, whereby I am undone, | 10 |
| How white, how still you lay, though shuddering yet | |
| In the last luxury of oblivion, | |
| As if of Death you had taken love long denied, | |
| With on your face the bliss of suicide. THE BLACK MOUNTAINS, 23rd Nov., 1919; OXFORDSHIRE, 16th Feb., 1920. | |