| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Sonnet VI. The Kiss | | By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) |
| | (From The House of Life, 1881)
WHAT smouldering senses in death’s sick delay | |
| Or seizure of malign vicissitude | |
| Can rob this body of honour, or denude | |
| This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day? | |
| For lo! even now my Lady’s lips did play | 5 |
| With these my lips such consonant interlude | |
| As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed | |
| The half-drawn hungering face with that busy lay. | |
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| I was a child beneath her touch,—a man | |
| When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,— | 10 |
| A spirit when her spirit looked through me,— | |
| A god when all our life-breath met to fan | |
| Our life-blood, till love’s emulous ardours ran, | |
| Fire within fire, desire in deity. | | | | |
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