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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Awakening

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

The Awakening

By Francis Saltus Saltus (1849–1889)
 
(From Dreams after Sunset, 1891)

HER arms lie bare about his neck, and still
  In dream, her lips half open with a sigh
  As though to woo her dream some sweet reply.
All slowly her enthrallèd senses fill,
 
As valley waters from a mountain rill        5
  Swollen by storm. Her bosom’d treasures lie
  Encircled by his arms, and still sweep by
The swelling tide into the Deep’s deep will.
 
And he, too, dreams—in Love’s night-hidden day—
  Until the shallows, murmuring, rise and leap,        10
And lap the spirit within that sweet clay
  Against his breast. Then lips that trysting keep,
Unconsciously, nearer and closer lay
  Till sudden kisses burst the bonds of sleep.