T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Sonnet VI. The Kiss
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (18281882)(From The House of Life, 1881) WHAT smouldering senses in death’s sick delay | |
Or seizure of malign vicissitude | |
Can rob this body of honour, or denude | |
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day? | |
For lo! even now my Lady’s lips did play | 5 |
With these my lips such consonant interlude | |
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed | |
The half-drawn hungering face with that busy lay. | |
I was a child beneath her touch,—a man | |
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,— | 10 |
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,— | |
A god when all our life-breath met to fan | |
Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran, | |
Fire within fire, desire in deity. | |