| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | Flame | | By George Sterling (1869–1926) |
| | (1921)
THOU art that madness of supreme desire, | |
| Which lacking, beauty is but dross and clay. | |
| Within thy veins is all the fire of day | |
| And all the stars divinity of fire. | |
| Thine are the lips and loins that never tire, | 5 |
| And thine the bliss that makes my soul dismay. | |
| Upon thy breast what god at midnight lay, | |
| To make thy flesh the music of his lyre? | |
| |
| Ah! such alone should know thy loveliness! | |
| Ah! such alone should know thy full caress, | 10 |
| O goddess of intolerable delight! | |
| I beg of Fate the guerdon and the grace, | |
| Far beyond death, to know in thine embrace | |
| Eternal rapture in eternal night. | | | | |
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