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(From Honey and Gall, 1873)
SLEEP and dream, lissome maid, while in rapture | |
| I caress thy grand poem of flesh; | |
| While I toy with each rich purple mesh | |
| Or gnarled tresses: when striving to capture | |
| All the hot biting odors from lips— | 5 |
| Half apart with the sweetness that slips | |
| From thy dimpled white smilings, sleep-fresh. | |
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| ’Tis the perfect round curve of thy shoulder, | |
| And thy sleek supple flanks I admire. | |
| For thy moonish-white skin doth inspire | 10 |
| My hot, vexed, restless gaze to pierce bolder; | |
| For thou sleepest, and red is thy dream | |
| With the naphtha of lust, and its gleam | |
| From the snows of thy breast hurls its fire. | |
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| Nay, awake not, nor turn, till I press thee, | 15 |
| For thy sleep is consoling as Night. | |
| And thy calm dreams shall taste the fire-might | |
| Of Love’s blendings, as mad, I caress thee, | |
| And thy white form with red kisses mark— | |
| Till thine eyes wake from lethargies dark— | 20 |
| To the glamours and splendors of light. | |
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| Then from dream-bliss to Life-bliss arisen, | |
| Thine hot tears, my hot tears will dispute, | |
| Then thy low pant sounds softer than lute | |
| To my ear; and thy bare arms imprison— | 25 |
| A no longer wild phantom of sighs, | |
| For thou closest thy large blurrèd eyes, | |
| And liest wond’ring, nude, pallid, and mute! | |
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| Let my kisses then follow incessant, | |
| O’er thy lips, o’er thy soft cheek of fur: | 30 |
| Let them moisten, as sultry they err | |
| The black shade of thy silk brows’ crescent— | |
| While I breathe the mysterious air, | |
| From thy chaos of undulate hair, | |
| Vague and dreamy as memories of myrrh. | 35 |
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