T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
From “The Songs of Bilitis” CIV. The Indifferent One
By Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925)
(1894. Translated from the French by Horace Manchester Brown. 1904)
SINCE he has entered my chamber whoever may he be (that is his affair): “See,” I say to the slave, “what a beautiful man! And how happy should be a courtesan!”
“Ah!” I say, “if to-day I had not to pay my florist and my jeweler, how I would like to tell thee, ‘I do not wish thy money! I am thy passionate servant!’”
Then, when he has closed his arms over my shoulders, I see a boatman of the port pass like a divine image over the starry heaven of my transparent lids.
