T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Love-Songs
By James Oppenheim (18821932)(From War and Laughter, 1916) MY tiny hands not being able to weave a garland of the stars, | |
I made curious songs for my beloved, | |
To crown her with. | |
For it seemed to me that my beloved dwelt in Paradise, | |
Somewhere with Beatrice of the Italian song, | 5 |
And that a ring of stars would be a poor enough halo for her radiant head. | |
Ah, but thus I wronged my love for my beloved: | |
For I made her a spirit, and left the greatest songs of all unsung: | |
The true love-songs that a man sings with his lips, his eyes, his flesh: | |
Not to a heavenly spirit, but to a human woman … | 10 |
So now I brush away Paradise and stars and curious songs like hindering cobwebs, | |
And see that my beloved is a breathing and laughing and passionate body, | |
And that the iris of her eyes is blue, and the pupils dilated and wonderfully deep, | |
And that her lips are firm and moist and sweet, | |
And her hands grasp tinglingly, | 15 |
And the skin of her neck and shoulders is cool and fresh, | |
And that there is a fragrance about her that is lovelier to me than meadows of sun-dried hay, | |
And that her laughter is irresistible, | |
And that she in my arms is as much of glory and ecstasy that a man may hold. | |
Wherefore Paradise is unnecessary, | 20 |
And the flame of stars works no more transformations than the flame of her lips meeting mine, | |
And the miracle of her actuality, her breathing flesh, and her contact with me, | |
Is as great a miracle as space may produce, | |
And so far as I am concerned, a greater. | |