Alice: An Adultery

THE THIRTY-FOURTH DAY “ Ben. Stop there, stop there. Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.” Romeo and Juliet. Sweet are the swift hard struggles ere the kiss, When the frail body blushes into tears, And short breaths cancel the long sighs, and fears Constrain delight, until their import is Made foolish when the struggle’s synthesis Leads to hot armistice, as dewy spheres Glow, and increase the fury that reveres No God, no heaven but its own hell’s bliss. So after desperate shifts of modesty We could no more ; loosened and lax we lay Breathing and holding : then in amorous play She laughed and left her body’s love to me, And kissed one kiss holding the heart of May, And kissed again, and kissed our lives away. 74