| |
(From Amoris Victima, 1897)
II. ALL that I know of love I learnt of you, | |
| And I know all that lover ever knew, | |
| Since, passionately loving to be loved, | |
| The subtlety of your wise body moved | |
| My senses to a curiosity, | 5 |
| And your wise heart adorned itself for me. | |
| Did you not teach me how to love you, how | |
| To win you, how to suffer for you now, | |
| Since you have made, as long as life endures, | |
| My very nerves, my very senses, yours? | 10 |
| I suffer for you now with that same skill | |
| Of self-consuming ecstasy, whose thrill | |
| (May Death some day the thought of it remove!) | |
| You gathered from the very hands of Love. | |
| |
VI. I CANNOT do without you: you have been | 15 |
| Too long my only slave, my only queen. | |
| I cannot do without you: you have grown | |
| Part of my flesh, and nearer than my own. | |
| I need you! Speak, be silent, frown or smile, | |
| Only be with me for a little while, | 20 |
| And let your face and hands and hair be kissed, | |
| And let me feel your fingers on my wrist. | |
| I cannot do without you. Other men | |
| Love, bid good-bye, and turn to love again; | |
| I only know I want you, only you, | 25 |
| Only because I want you. If you knew | |
| How much I want you! If you knew how much | |
| I hunger, should I hunger, for your touch? | |
| |
