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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Meditation—the Mirror

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Meditation—the Mirror

By Charlotte Eaton
 
SOMETIMES catching a glimpse of myself nude, in the mirror,
I am arrested, struck by the line of the shoulders, neck or bosom—
And I gaze intently, becoming absorbed, lost in visions of the Figurines of Tanagra,
And I dream of the days of Psappha and her comrade, Bilitis,
And the later days of Aspasia, loved of Pericles, honored of Phidias;        5
Virile days when physical defect was held an offense equal almost to crime;
And I remember also the aerial altitudes of the figures in the frescoes of Pompeii,
And I realize more fully that no man of unchaste thought of the human form could have so delightfully portrayed it—
And I adjust the mirror to reflect my body as I assume poses like those of the crouching Venuses of Naples,
Exclaiming to myself and admiring, forgetful that it is my own image that is before me,        10
For the strong impersonal emotion of the artist is upon me—and I am happy.