T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Sonnets to AureliaXXVII. I must remember now how once I woke
By Robert Nichols (18931944)(From Aurelia & Other Poems, 1920) |
I MUST remember now how once I woke | |
To find the harsh lamplight stream upon her bed, | |
The ceiling tremble in its giddy smoke, | |
And on the wall the agile spider spread, | |
To hear the reverberate vault of silence shake | 5 |
Beneath the hollow crash of midnight’s toll, | |
Whose profound strokes waned impotent to break | |
The charnel stillness of the city’s soul. | |
These I remember, but would more forget | |
What is most fixed, whereby I am undone, | 10 |
How white, how still you lay, though shuddering yet | |
In the last luxury of oblivion, | |
As if of Death you had taken love long denied, | |
With on your face the bliss of suicide. THE BLACK MOUNTAINS, 23rd Nov., 1919; OXFORDSHIRE, 16th Feb., 1920. | |