Collected Works (Vol. I)

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; Tam 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 fll My heart! wife ? Would I content you with one touch divine To flood your spirit with the clinging strife O woman, would I call you Of perfect passionate joy, the joy of wine, The drunkenness of extreme pleasure, hlled 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, vue perfect hour, Remembrance and despair and hope to steep In the infernal potion of that flower, My poisonous passion for your blood! Behold ! How utterly I yield, how gladly dower Our sin with my own spirit’s quenchéd gold, Clothe love with my own soul’s immortal power, Give thee my body as a fire to hold— O love, no words, no songs—your breast my bower ! A SAINT'S DAMNATION 133 LOT. ‘And while he lingered... they brought him forth, and set him without the city. — GEN, XIX. FO. Turns back from safety: in my love abide, Whose lips are warn as when, a virgin bride, T clung to thee ashamed and very glad, Whose breasts are Jordlier for the pain they had, Whose arms cleave closer than thy spouse’s own, Thy spouse-—O lover, kiss me, and atone ! All my veins bleed for love, my ripe breasts beat And lay their bleeding blossoms at thy feet ! Spurn me no more! O bid these strangers TO5 Turn to my lips till their cup overflow ; Ilurt me with kisses. kill me with desire, Consume me and destroy me with the fire Of bleeding passion straining at the heart, Touched to the core by sweetnesses that smart ; Bitten by fiery snakes, whose poisonous breath Swoons in the midnight, and dissolves to death ! Ah! let me perish so, and not endure Thy falsehood who have known thy love was sure, Built up by sighs a palace of Jong years— Lo! it was faery, and the spell of tears Dissolves it utlerly. O bid them go, These white-faced boys, where calmer rivers flow And birds less passionate invoke the spring Or seck their loves with weaker, wearier wing. Turn back from safety! pour Brimstone and fire, and all his fountains roar Lava and hail of hell upon my head, So be he leave us altogether dead, Burnt in that shameful whirlwind of his ire, Consumed in one tall pyramid of fire Let God's rivers