T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Happiest
By George Sterling (18691926)(1921) CALLING you now, not for your flesh I call, | |
Nor for the mad, long raptures of the night | |
And passion in its beauty and its might, | |
When the ecstatic bodies rise and fall. | |
I cannot feign: God knows I see it all— | 5 |
The flaming senses, raving with delight, | |
The leopards, swift and terrible and white, | |
Within the loins that shudder as they crawl. | |
All that could I exultingly forego, | |
Could I but stand, one flash of time, and see | 10 |
Your heavenly, entrancing face, and know | |
I stood most blest of all beneath the sun, | |
Hearing these words from your fond lips to me: | |
“I love, love you, and love no other one!” | |