T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Erotion
By Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)(From Poems and Ballads, 1866) SWEET for a little even to fear, and sweet, | |
| O love, to lay down fear at love’s fair feet; | |
| Shall not some fiery memory of his breath | |
| Lie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death? | |
| Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; | 5 |
| Love me no more, but love my love of thee. | |
| Love where thou wilt, and live thy life; and I, | |
| One thing I can, and one love cannot—die. | |
| Pass from me; yet thine arms, thine eyes, thine hair, | |
| Feed my desire and deaden my despair. | 10 |
| Yet once more ere time change us, ere my cheek | |
| Whiten, ere hope be dumb or sorrow speak, | |
| Yet once more ere thou hate me, one full kiss; | |
| Keep other hours for others, save me this. | |
| Yea, and I will not (if it please thee) weep, | 15 |
| Lest thou be sad; I will but sigh, and sleep. | |
| Sweet, does death hurt? thou canst not do me wrong: | |
| I shall not lack thee, as I loved thee, long. | |
| Hast thou not given me above all that live | |
| Joy, and a little sorrow shalt not give? | 20 |
| What even though fairer fingers of strange girls | |
| Pass nestling through thy beautiful boy’s curls | |
| As mine did, or those curled lithe lips of thine | |
| Meet theirs as these, all theirs come after mine; | |
| And though I were not, though I be not, best, | 25 |
| I have loved and love thee more than all the rest. | |
| O love, O lover, loose or hold me fast, | |
| I had thee first, whoever have thee last; | |
| Fairer or not, what need I know, what care? | |
| To thy fair bud my blossom once seemed fair. | 30 |
| Why am I fair at all before thee, why | |
| At all desired? seeing thou art fair, not I. | |
| I shall be glad of thee, O fairest head, | |
| Alive, alone, without thee, with thee, dead; | |
| I shall remember while the light lives yet, | 35 |
| And in the night-time I shall not forget. | |
| Though (as thou wilt) thou leave me ere life leave, | |
| I will not, for thy love I will not, grieve; | |
| Not as they use who love not more than I, | |
| Who love not as I love thee though I die; | 40 |
| And though thy lips, once mine, be oftener prest | |
| To many another brow and balmier breast, | |
| And sweeter arms, or sweeter to thy mind, | |
| Lull thee or lure, more fond thou wilt not find. | |