| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | From “The Songs of Bilitis”
XXXIII. Remorse | | By Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925) |
| | (1894. Translated from the French by Horace Manchester Brown. 1904)
AT first I would not reply, and my shame showed upon my cheeks, and the beating of my heart brought pain to my breasts. | 1 |
| Then I resisted, I told him “No! No!”—I turned my head away, and his kiss did not open my lips,—nor love, my tight-closed knees. | 2 |
| Then he begged me to forgive him, kissed my hair, I felt his burning breath, and he went away…. Now I am alone. | 3 |
| I gaze upon the empty place, the deserted wood, the trampled earth. And I bite my fingers until they bleed, and I stifle my sobs in the grass. | 4 | | |
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