T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Usury
By Orrick Johns (18871946)(From “Hedone”; from Black Branches, 1920) |
TREASURE I aught beneath the stars | |
to scorn thy soul’s ihlang-ihlang … | |
Have I some yet crescendent bars | |
no other suitor learned or sang? | |
These searching fingers unashamed, | 5 |
sweet with the ink that blots the sun, | |
are they not tigers loosed and tamed | |
to fright thee, child of Babylon? | |
My tangled hairs and anguished jaws | |
above the loom like riddled flags, | 10 |
storming beyond the menopause | |
to whitened Hylotheic crags. | |
Thou shalt fall back, the knotted loins | |
of thought are pressing on unbound! | |
the pillars and the deep-lunged groins | 15 |
of reticence are flung to ground. | |
Yet for thy love’s ihlang-ihlang | |
these fiery flanks obey, are still | |
and the uncivilized mustang | |
of beauty sleeps … it is thy will. | 20 |