And slip half-conscious to the old embrace.
And now you will not let me see your face
Or hear your voice or touch you. Ah! the hour!
He moves. Come back, come back, my life’s one flower!
Come back. One kiss before you leave me. So!
Stop—turn—one little kiss before you go;
Tt is my right—you must. Oh no! Oh no!
A SAINT’S DAMNATION
(By Aleister Crowley. From The Soul of Osiris. 1901)
YOU buy my spirit with those shameless eyes
That burn my soul, you loose the torrent stream
Of my desire, you make my lips your prize,
And on them burns the whole life’s hope: you deem
You buy a heart; but I am well aware
How my damnation dwells
in that supreme
Passion to feed upon your shoulders bare,
And pass the dewy twilight of our sin
In the intolerable
flames of hair
That clothe my body from your head; you win
The devil’s bargain; I am yours
to kill,
Yours, for one kiss; my spirit for your skin!
O bitter love, consuming
all my will!
O love destroying,
that hast drained my life
Of all those fountains of dear blood that fill
My heartt O woman, would I call you wife?
Would I content you with one touch divine
To flood your spirit with the clinging strife
Of perfect passionate joy, the joy of wine,
The drunkenness
of extreme pleasure, filled
From sin’s amazing
cup. Oh, mine, mine, mine,
Mine, if your kisses maddened me or killed,
Mine, at the price of my damnation deep,
Mine, if you will, as once your glances willed!
‘Take me, or break me, slay or soothe to sleep,
If only yours one hour, one perfect hour,
Remembrance
and despair and hope to steep.
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