| T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22. | | | Sonnets to Aurelia
XIII. “Sometimes I think you know not what love is” | | By Robert Nichols (1893–1944) |
| | (From Aurelia & Other Poems, 1920) |
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SOMETIMES I think you know not what love is | |
| But only pang of amorous delight: | |
| The terrible resuscitation of the kiss, | |
| And the prolonged love-agonies of the night. | |
| Oh, when I so do think, then I could sear | 5 |
| These loving lips with the consuming coal, | |
| Submit these limbs to the machine to tear | |
| And ruin my body to secure your soul. | |
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| For rather would I perish as a man, | |
| And hateful as a maniac seem to you, | 10 |
| Than that our joy, which in true love began, | |
| Should, in abuse, turn to its birth untrue. | |
| Wherefore take heed lest, in your passion strong, | |
| Your acts read right but your intention wrong. | | | |
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