| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | | From “The Tunnel” | | By Evelyn Scott (1893–1963) |
| | (From Precipitations, 1920)
I I HAVE made you a child in the womb, | |
| Holding you in sweet and final darkness. | |
| All day as I walk out | |
| I carry you about. | |
| I guard you close in secret where | 5 |
| Cold eyed people cannot stare. | |
| I am melted in the warm dear fire, | |
| Lover and mother in the same desire. | |
| Yet I am afraid of your eyes | |
| And their possible surprise. | 10 |
| Would you be angry if I let you know | |
| That I carried you so? | |
| |
II I could kiss you to death | |
| Hoping that, your protest obliterated, | |
| You would be | 15 |
| Utterly me. | |
| Yet I know—how well!— | |
| Like a shell, | |
| Hollow and echoing, | |
| Death would be, | 20 |
| With a roar of the past | |
| Like the roar of the sea. | |
| And what is lifeless I cannot kill! | |
| So you would make death work your will. | |
| |
III In most intimate touch we meet, | 25 |
| Lip to lip, | |
| Breast to breast, | |
| Sweet. | |
| Suddenly we draw apart | |
| And start. | 30 |
| Like strangers surprised at a road’s turning | |
| We see, | |
| I, the naked you; | |
| You, the naked me. | |
| There was something of neither of us | 35 |
| That covered the hours, | |
| And we have only touched each other’s bodies | |
| Through veils of flowers. | |
| But let us smile kindly, | |
| Like those already dead, | 40 |
| On the warm flesh | |
| And the marriage bed. | | | | |
|
|
