T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From “The Songs of Bilitis”LXXXII. Waiting
By Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925)(1894. Translated from the French by Horace Manchester Brown. 1904) THE SUN has passed the whole of the night among the dead while I wait for her, seated upon my bed, weak with watching. The wick of the exhausted lamp has burned even to the end. | 1 |
| She will never come again—the last star fades. I know she will never return. I know even the name that I hate. Nevertheless I wait still. | 2 |
| Oh, that she would come now! Yes, that she would come, her hair disordered and without roses, her robes rumpled, soiled, and awry, her tongue dry, and her eyelids black! | 3 |
| As soon as she shall open the door, I will say to her … But, her she is … It is her robe that I shall touch. Her hands. Her hair. Her skin! I kiss her with unquestioning lips, and I weep. | 4 |