T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Bacchante
By Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff (1888–1959)(From Narcissus and Other Poems, 1918) |
I AM inebriate with the sunlight’s golden wine, | |
| And I would love with an insensate fury! | |
| Let me drain beauty even unto death! | |
| Bring me a languid woman, perfumed, young, | |
| Her dusky body hung with dazzling gems | 5 |
| And strange exotic iridescent stuffs— | |
| Her wanton eyes like thirsty summer moons. | |
| Oh, I would love with an insensate fury! | |
| Bring me a pale flower-boy, | |
| White-limbed like a young heifer in a field, | 10 |
| His lips a quiver with unknown desire…. | |
| His soft throat virgin beneath my kiss, | |
| His bosom like a bower of stars. | |
| I would dance like a drunken fawn amid the wood, | |
| Enraptured with the budding pollen-scents! | 15 |