T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Barber
By John Gray (1866–1934)(From Silverpoints, 1893) I DREAMED I was a barber; and there went | |
| Beneath my hand, oh! manes extravagant. | |
| Beneath my trembling fingers, many a mask | |
| Of many a pleasant girl. It was my task | |
| To gild their hair, carefully, strand by strand; | 5 |
| To paint their eyebrows with a timid hand; | |
| To draw a bodkin, from a vase of kohl, | |
| Through the closed lashes; pencils from a bowl | |
| Of sepia to paint them underneath; | |
| To blow upon their eyes with a soft breath. | 10 |
| They lay them back and watched the leaping bands. | |
| The dream grew vague. I moulded with my hands | |
| The mobile breasts, the valley; and the waist | |
| I touched; and pigments reverently placed | |
| Upon their thighs in sapient spots and stains, | 15 |
| Beryls and crysolites and diaphanes, | |
| And gems whose hot harsh names are never said. | |
| I was a masseur; and my fingers bled | |
| With wonder as I touched their awful limbs. | |
| Suddenly, in the marble trough, there seems | 20 |
| O, last of my pale mistresses, Sweetness! | |
| A twy-lipped scarlet pansy. My caress | |
| Tinges thy steel-gray eyes to violet. | |
| Adown thy body skips the pit-a-pat | |
| Of treatment once heard in a hospital | 25 |
| For plagues that fascinate, but half appal. | |
| So, at the sound, the blood of one stood cold. | |
| Thy chaste hair ripened into sudden gold. | |
| The throat, the shoulders, swelled and were uncouth. | |
| The breasts rose up and offered each a mouth. | 30 |
| And on the belly pallid blushes crept, | |
| That maddened me, until I laughed and wept. | |