T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Songs of Creation: Eté
By Zella Muriel Wright(From A Pagan Anthology, 1918) |
IT is good to be loved. | |
| A man waits for me | |
| Who will cover my body with kisses; | |
| He will bury his face in my hair; | |
| He will weep with joy at the touch of me. | 5 |
| It is good to be loved. | |
| I wait for you in the dusk. | |
| How strange you seem tonight! | |
| Your eyes glisten with a burnished light, | |
| Like the eyes of a serpent, | 10 |
| Like the eyes of a god. | |
| Wherever your eyes are turned upon me | |
| My flesh burns | |
| As tho two hot coals were laid upon it; | |
| But I do not move. | 15 |
| Why do you never take your eyes from me? | |
| Why do you tremble and grow so pale, | |
| You who were so radiant and rigid | |
| A moment ago? | |
| You touch me and drop weakly in a heap; | 20 |
| There is no power in your muscles. | |
| But it is only the weakness before madness; | |
| A madness that gives you a ten-fold strength. | |
| For a second I shrink with fear, | |
| Lest in your ferocity, you devour me. | 25 |
| Then I laugh—my whole body laughs; | |
| But I move not. | |
| On my lips there is a faint smile, | |
| Shall I tell you why I smile? | |
| I smile because I am happy; | 30 |
| Because this instant is my instant | |
| In this eternity of eternities. | |
| Tonight I understand that life is not | |
| The groping, broken, half-thing | |
| It has always seemed. | 35 |