T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Sonnets to AureliaXIX. Come, let us sigh a requiem over love
By Robert Nichols (18931944)(From Aurelia & Other Poems, 1920) |
COME, let us sigh a requiem over love | |
That we ourselves have slain in love’s own bed, | |
Whose hearts that had courage to drink enough | |
Lacked courage to forbid the taste they bred, | |
Which body captained soon, till, in disgust, | 5 |
These very hearts of bodily surfeit died, | |
Poisoned by that sweet overflow of lust | |
Whose past delight our substance deified. | |
No courage, no, nor pleasure have we now, | |
To our own frantic bodies are we tossed, | 10 |
Only sometimes exhaustion will allow | |
Us peace to observe the image of love’s ghost, | |
With torturing voice and with hid face return | |
Faintly, as even now, to bid us mourn. | |