T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
In a Moment
By Joseph T. Shipley (1893–1988)(1922) A LEAP, flash of my body over the water’s dark, | |
| Splash, and before her startled senses wake | |
| To action, I am there! | |
| She stands, unconscious of her nudity. | |
| Two needle-flies, joined and vibrating like a living harp, | 5 |
| Spun round her in their passion. | |
| One was green-black, and one a vivid blue. | |
| She watched them idly, while the water lapped— | |
| Oh, so tenderly, not to alarm her— | |
| Avidly at the cream-round of her thighs. | 10 |
| Then she turned idly, floating. | |
| There is no human sight more fair | |
| Than was her slender form; she lay | |
| Like a kiss upon the water, and the sun | |
| Lighted her face, and danced upon her breasts | 15 |
| As fairies dance on soft rose-petals strewn | |
| For their queen’s wedding day. | |
| It was our bridal that the sun proclaimed. | |
| Did the envious wind whisper warning? | |
| Did that scurry of wild ducks to the farther shore | 20 |
| Startle her? She is no more a nymph | |
| That dreams, adrift to nowhere, in a time | |
| When water and wind and sun were sheltering gods; | |
| She is no more incarnate heedless beauty | |
| But a huddled timorous maiden I adore. | 25 |
| She stands, all-conscious of her nudity, | |
| Shrunk for concealment, poised for flight. | |
| Now—Now—I must leap! | |